The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and AlexandraSt. Martin's Press
June 3, 2014
Idgie Says:
Interested in the Romanov family? This is a book for you! 492 pages, over 100 pages of references, notes, index items.... and wonderful photos from the family archives. It's the story from the viewpoint of the girl's lives during this time instead of the Czar.
This is a perfect book for a history buff. The story of this family and their lives, and loss of lives, never grows old and stale to the historical readers.
Look at the cover - gorgeous! On sale June 3rd.
Book Description:
THE LOST LIVES OF THE ROMANOV GRAND DUCHESSES
PUBLICATION: UK: Pan Macmillan, 27 March 2014 USA: St Martin's Press, 3 June 201
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The four captivating young Romanov sisters were perhaps the most photographed and
talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. And with good reason; they
were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, and their devotion to
their parents and sick brother. From an early age they were inevitably at the centre
of unceasing gossip about the dynastic marriages they might make. But who were they
really beyond the saccharine image perpetuated by those now familiar photographs
of them as pretty girls in white dresses and big hats? What were their personal
hopes, dreams and aspirations and how did they interact with each other and with
their parents? What was life really like within the highly insular Imperial Family
and how did they really feel about their mother’s obsessive and all consuming love
for their spoilt brother Alexey?
Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement
at Ekaterinburg in 1918 has clouded our view of them, leading to a mass of sentimental
and idealized hagiography. They are too often seen merely as set dressing, the beautiful
but innocuous background to the bigger, more dramatic story of their parents – Russia’s
last Tsar and Tsarina, Nicholas and Alexandra. They are perceived as lovely, desirable
and living charmed lives. But the truth is somewhat different.
For most of their short lives the four Romanov sisters were beautiful birds in a
gilded cage, shut away at their palaces at Tsarskoe Selo or Livadia as a reaction
to the fear of terrorist attacks on the Imperial Family. In reality the sisters
had few friends and were largely cut off from the real world outside and the normal
life experiences of other girls – that is, until everything changed in 1914. Suddenly,
with Russia’s entry into the war, the girls had to grow up fast.
In a deliberate echo of the title of Chekhov’s play, Four Sisters sets out to capture
the joy as well as the insecurities and poignancy of those young lives against the
backdrop of the dying days of late Imperial Russia, drawing on previously unseen
and unpublished letters, diaries and memoirs of the period.
The book is also the subject of a forthcoming documentary ‘Russia’s Lost Princesses’,
which the author has been working on with Silver River Productions for BBC2. A transmission
date will be announced soon. www.silverriver.tv