Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty
Author: Robert K. Massie
Rating: ā 4/5
Date Read: 2013/07/28
Pages: 640
Here are some things I knew about the Romanovs before reading Nicholas and Alexandra:
-Their rule ended because of the Russian Revolution, which did not go particularly well for them (or for anyone, really).
-Alexis was a hemophiliac.
-Rasputin was somehow involved, and he was also a bearded super-creeper.
-The 1997 animated film is, sadly, not an accurate portrayal of the fate of Anastasia Romanova.
Which is to say that I learned quite a lot from this book.
My history classes had an overly-simplistic narrative about European revolutions. The story always went that the monarchs were fools who cared more about jewelry than their own people, and deserved to be deposed. The people were always doing the right thing, and we didnāt learn much about the bloody executions and power struggles that took place away from the royal palaces. The end result was always that revolution paved the way for democracy (yay, democracy!!! Democracy is always right all the time always!!!), or that revolutions temporarily created communist states (boo, communism, communists are always evil and starving and bad), but that eventually these communist states would realize that democracy is like totally the best thing EVAH, so no worries.
Nicholas and Alexandra, of course, provides a more nuanced story of the Russian Revolution. At the center stands Nicholas, a family man who cared deeply about Russia yet never questioned his hereditary right to autocracy. Next time him is Alexandra, a devout mother caring for a chronically-ill son. Alexandra seemed to have a fairly thorny personality, but Massie convincingly argues that Alexandra was also emotionally manipulated by Rasputin. Massie speculates that things would have turned out different for Russia if little Alexis hadnāt been born with hemophilia. If Alexis were well, then Rasputin couldnāt have come to power, Alexandra would not have been convinced by Rasputin to fight for complete autocracy, and Nicholas might have allowed Russia to become a constitutional monarchy. Itās an interesting bit of speculative history, which I could easily see being true.
Itās obvious that the imperial family had no business running Russia, which had more than its fair share of problems. However, itās also obvious that the Romanovs didnāt deserve to be brutally executed. Nicholas and Alexandra presents a balanced portrait of the last Russian monarchs, and I recommend the book for anyone interested in Russia.