A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra

[miki_nastya]

 I have just barrow this book. It's seams to be interesting.

[anna11]

Would I be right in thinking this is the only source of letters written during Nicholas and Alexandra's engagement and separations before the war?

[carkuczyn]

In the book, "The Last Tsar" by Edvard Radzinsky there are many exerpts from both of their diaries and letters to each other.   It is an interesting read.....but gets a little boring towards the end because the author belabors the discovery of and the investigation of the imperial family's bones. 

[anna11]

Is Radzinsky's biography worth buying just for the extracts of letters? I'm not really a fan of Radzinsky, I hated his book on Rasputin.

[Belochka]

No serious historian should in my opinion place full reliance on Radzinsky's translated works.

Having the original and the English translation (and occassionally comparing them with the original Russian sources used) I have noticed that there are serious errors not only in translation but that those interpretations are muddied by the stylistic devices used by this playwright.

Margarita

[Sarushka]

I wonder if the fact that Nicholas and Alexandra's letters were originally written in English makes any difference in the translation issues?

[Belochka]

I wonder if the fact that Nicholas and Alexandra's letters were originally written in English makes any difference in the translation issues?

Regarding the N and A letters, there is merit to your suggestion. Difficulties arise from both directions.

[anna11]

I've also noticed that small details of letters are sometimes different, depending on what book is quoting them. For example N and As letters on AP sometimes differ from those in Lifelong Passion just in a some words or the structure of some sentences. Any idea why this might be?

It's a shame, i'd like to read more of NAs letters from engagment and marriage before war. They're very sweet. 

[Sarushka]

From the introduction:

"And now for our own sins; everything in this book is the truth, nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. Our primary sin is that of omission: we have not used a great many historical documents that we had in our hands, and have mercilessly cut some we did use without indicating our cuts. We have made some sadrifices for the sake of style, narration and counterpoint; and in two or three cases we have interfered with the otherwise strictly observed chronology of the documents."

This has been discussed before, but today I happened upon a concrete example that surprised me somewhat with the extent of the edits it reveals.

Excerpts from Aleksei Nikolaevich's 1918 diary, as they appear in A Lifelong Passion:

Sunday, 7 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Tuesday, 9 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Friday, 12 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Sunday, 14 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Wednesday, 17 January
Everything is the same. Kolia didn’t come again.

Thursday, 18 January
Everything is the same. Anastasia is up and dressed. 26 below. Boring!!!


Excerpts from Aleksei Nikolaevich's 1918 diary, as they appear in Le tsarevitch, enfant martyr:

Sunday, 7 January
The whole day was like yesterday, except in the afternoon I took a walk for 1 hour. It was 20 below zero. I wrote to PVP. Tomorrow there will be lessons.

Tuesday, 9 January
Today was like yesterday. Kolia came in the afternoon and we made armour.

Friday, 12 January
Kolia came in the afternoon. At noon there was a Te Deum for Tatiana. We had lunch at 12:30. The day passed as yesterday.

Sunday, 14 January
The day passed as yesterday.  Kolia came. At 7:00 there was a play. The players were Papa, T, A, Gilik, and the Prince Dolgorouki. It was very interesting. It was called “Les Deux Timides.”

Wednesday, 17 January
Everything is the same. Schwibs is getting better. Kolia didn’t come again. In the afternoon, I talked with the soldiers. They’re the best guards! Outside it’s 16 below zero. In the evening I played checkers with the soldiers in the guard room.

Thursday, 18 January
Everything is the same. Anastasia is dressed and walking around. It’s 26 below zero. Schwibs is better. Boredom!! In the evening we rehearsed our comedy.


Aside from minor differences in translation (the Le Tsarevitch excerpts were translated from French by two friends of mine) IMO the Lifelong Passion excerpts give a distinctly different impression than Le Tsarevitch does. I'm grateful Maylunas and Mironenko were upfront about their editorial approach, but seeing its affect on the text this way makes me a little leery of relying on this book as an academic resource. Thoughts?

[Janet Ashton]

From the introduction:

"And now for our own sins; everything in this book is the truth, nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. Our primary sin is that of omission: we have not used a great many historical documents that we had in our hands, and have mercilessly cut some we did use without indicating our cuts. We have made some sadrifices for the sake of style, narration and counterpoint; and in two or three cases we have interfered with the otherwise strictly observed chronology of the documents."

This has been discussed before, but today I happened upon a concrete example that surprised me somewhat with the extent of the edits it reveals.

Excerpts from Aleksei Nikolaevich's 1918 diary, as they appear in A Lifelong Passion:

Sunday, 7 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Tuesday, 9 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Friday, 12 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Sunday, 14 January
The whole day was just like yesterday.

Wednesday, 17 January
Everything is the same. Kolia didn’t come again.

Thursday, 18 January
Everything is the same. Anastasia is up and dressed. 26 below. Boring!!!


Excerpts from Aleksei Nikolaevich's 1918 diary, as they appear in Le tsarevitch, enfant martyr:

Sunday, 7 January
The whole day was like yesterday, except in the afternoon I took a walk for 1 hour. It was 20 below zero. I wrote to PVP. Tomorrow there will be lessons.

Tuesday, 9 January
Today was like yesterday. Kolia came in the afternoon and we made armour.

Friday, 12 January
Kolia came in the afternoon. At noon there was a Te Deum for Tatiana. We had lunch at 12:30. The day passed as yesterday.

Sunday, 14 January
The day passed as yesterday.  Kolia came. At 7:00 there was a play. The players were Papa, T, A, Gilik, and the Prince Dolgorouki. It was very interesting. It was called “Les Deux Timides.”

Wednesday, 17 January
Everything is the same. Schwibs is getting better. Kolia didn’t come again. In the afternoon, I talked with the soldiers. They’re the best guards! Outside it’s 16 below zero. In the evening I played checkers with the soldiers in the guard room.

Thursday, 18 January
Everything is the same. Anastasia is dressed and walking around. It’s 26 below zero. Schwibs is better. Boredom!! In the evening we rehearsed our comedy.


Aside from minor differences in translation (the Le Tsarevitch excerpts were translated from French by two friends of mine) IMO the Lifelong Passion excerpts give a distinctly different impression than Le Tsarevitch does. I'm grateful Maylunas and Mironenko were upfront about their editorial approach, but seeing its affect on the text this way makes me a little leery of relying on this book as an academic resource. Thoughts?

Well, editing or not, I think both extracts give the impression that he found his life dull. Enfant Martyr might convey the idea that this was more in his own mind than in reality (evoking Gleb Botkin's description of a boy whose "restlessness was depressing"), but then so do the M&M extracts when taken in context of chapters which (IIRC) also describe his exciting life at Stavka. So at best he was bored by being at home again, and both convey that.
I'd be wary of taking anyone's edits at face value, and I don't think I'd call that book scholarly in intent (because it was designed to capitalise on the huge N and A nostalgia of the mid 90s) but I'd trust Lifelong Passion as being a condensation of substantially more material the authors had seen. The other one had an agenda too without question: the very title says a lot, though I can't for the life of me imagine how anyone's agenda relates to these extracts!

[Sarushka]

I realize we're dealing with minutiae here, but as someone who's interested in the psychology of the imperial family's imprisonment, I find the cuts irritating and a trifle misleading; the difference between Aleksei's perceived boredom and the reality is significant to me. It also makes me wonder what other impressions the editors have cultivated or let wither by way of their omissions.

[Louis_Charles]

Sarah,

I get why you are a little uneasy, but I don't think that the book was intended to do much more than give you a quick fly-by of about 25 years, which means that there was probably a lot more sacrificed from the primary sources than is evident in the cuts to Alexei's diary that you have posted. And they did capture his salient feeling (in every entry he describes himself as either explicitly bored or that the days are monotonous). I had the impression that he wrote to satisfy a duty, i.e. keeping some sort of daily account.

I do have a question about the children's diaries, though. Does anyone know if, say, Alexandra or Nicholas actually read them? They certainly knew that their children were keeping journals, and I am curious as to whether they regarded these as what might almost be called composition exercises. If Alexei knew that his mother, father or tutor was going to see what he wrote, then perhaps he phrased his entries as drily as possible for that reason. I would also be interested in the physical appearance of the actual pages. Are there crossed-out words, false sentence starts, things like that, or is the page fairly clean --- what we might call a final draft. How and when did he and the girls write? Was there a specific time set aside for it, or did they do it privately? The letters encapsulated in A Lifelong Passion seem much more emotionally demonstrative than any of the diaries, and not just the children's.

Simon

[Sarushka]

I do have a question about the children's diaries, though. Does anyone know if, say, Alexandra or Nicholas actually read them? They certainly knew that their children were keeping journals, and I am curious as to whether they regarded these as what might almost be called composition exercises. If Alexei knew that his mother, father or tutor was going to see what he wrote, then perhaps he phrased his entries as drily as possible for that reason.

Interesting you should ask this. I can tell you that a number of the entries in Aleksei's 1916 diary were in fact dictated to his mother, sisters, and Petrov due to illness or plain old laziness. These dictated entries don't vary much at all from the entries Aleksei wrote himself, which suggests to me that Aleksei was either completely unselfconscious, or that he was accustomed to the adults in his life reading his diary from time to time.

I would also be interested in the physical appearance of the actual pages. Are there crossed-out words, false sentence starts, things like that, or is the page fairly clean --- what we might call a final draft.

Left to right: Olga 1917, Aleksei 1916, Aleksei 1917, Maria 1912


As for the physical format of the diaries themselves, it appears that the children began keeping diaries around the age of 8 or 10 (though Aleksei didn't begin until the year he turned 12) and for the first few years they used traditional cloth-covered books with the year stamped on the front and each page pre-printed for each day of the year, like so:


Olga 1911, Maria 1916
(Aleksei's 1916 diary is virtually identical to Maria's, except that it's orange.)

At some indeterminate point, the Big Pair at least graduated to what we'd today call blank books or exercise books -- lined, undated volumes that allowed for more freedom in the length of each day's entry. The Big Pair also kept notebooks for copying down favorite poems, scripture and so forth:


Olga (poetry), Tatiana (religious)

How and when did he and the girls write? Was there a specific time set aside for it, or did they do it privately?

I have the impression that in Aleksei's case at least, the diaries were attended to just before bed. He often closes with "To bed early/late/at the usual time."

The letters encapsulated in A Lifelong Passion seem much more emotionally demonstrative than any of the diaries, and not just the children's.

You're certainly right about that. The diaries seem to function mostly as record books of the day's events. In comparison to the IF's letters, their diaries demonstrate little in the way of introspection or emotion.

[Louis_Charles]

Thanks for posting those pictures. Maria certainly had untidy handwriting, but that's another issue. Are the corrections on Alexei's first page in his own hand?

Now I'm really curious as to how "public" the diaries were. Maria's has more the look of something private, although she is clearly making more of an effort to be neat on the left page (it would also be interesting for someone who has graphology experience to take a look at these, or have they? I have a little, and Maria's handwriting is very revealing). Alexei's look to me to be more a duty than anything else . What did you mean by "self-conscious", Sarah?

Simon

[Sarushka]

Are the corrections on Alexei's first page in his own hand?

I think so, but I can't swear to it.

Now I'm really curious as to how "public" the diaries were.

Not sure. All the childhood diaries I've seen belonging to OTM and Aleksei have that little clasp/latch, but I don't know if they actually locked. (Though anyone with a toothpick and a bit of ambition can pop those wimpy locks in three seconds or less. Heh.)

Maria's has more the look of something private, although she is clearly making more of an effort to be neat on the left page (it would also be interesting for someone who has graphology experience to take a look at these, or have they? I have a little, and Maria's handwriting is very revealing).

Another, far neater, example of Maria's writing:

Alexei's look to me to be more a duty than anything else . What did you mean by "self-conscious", Sarah?

I mean in comparison to the entries he wrote himself, Aleksei doesn't appear to be self-editing when he dictates entries to his elders. They're no more "proper" nor less revealing than the rest of his diary. Whereas if I had to dictate a diary entry to a parent or teacher, you can bet your boots the tone and content would be considerably different from anything I'd written myself for my eyes only.