Romanov

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In general I feel that the Revolutions podcast about the Russian revolution is much more in depth/helicopter view than this book:

Rasputin is a very juicy topic, probably being the most covered non-Tzar in the book Him being gripped by the penis by a bishop to force him a confession on his misconduct is only one of the events one can not imagine to be actually true, but Sebag Montefiore also pulls out statistics like 1/15 of wives in St Petersburg being prostitutes. Amongst these 18 Romanovs, a few are incredibly famous, including Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Alexander I, and the last one is Tar Nicholas II. The Romanov Empire was put to an end by the Bolshevik revolutionaries. Sure, some people might have said I was a seven-year old fibber. But not my parents. Instead of calling my stories "fibs" they called them "imaginative." They encouraged me to put my stories down on paper. I did. And amazingly, once I began writing, I couldn't stop. I filled notebook after notebook with stories, poems, plays. I still have many of those notebooks. They're precious to me because they are a record of my writing life from elementary school on. The Romanovs were high-ranking aristocrats in Russia during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1613, Mikhail Romanov became the first Romanov czar of Russia, following a fifteen-year period of political upheaval after the fall of Russia’s medieval Rurik dynasty. He took the name Michael I. It is clear that the consolidation of power is enormous: someone owning more than 300.000 serfs under Catherine (daughter of Peter the Great). Or Elisavetta having 15.000 dresses at her death, and her losing 4.000 dresses in a fire in a palace.

5. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter by Robert K. Massie

acceptance of most historical sources at face value rather than querying the interests and biases of those who wrote them Nicolas being a micromanager leading to a disastrous Russo Japanese war and a first defeat of a Western power by an Asian navy. And then we have Rasputin slithering into the Imperial family due to concerns over their hemophiliac heir Alexei, definitely setting in a decline in the empire. Another recurring feature, which a lot of readers could probably do without, was the extensive and, worse, repetitive, quotes from sexual passages in Imperial love-letters. Some of my reaction is probably down to getting old, but no matter how much I used to put it about, I have always found tales of other people's silly sex words ridiculous, and, yes, unsexy. (No, Montefiore, not "every passionate couple" has a set of pet names for each others' genitals - a disdain I learned through British comedy as much as anything.)

Saying that, there actually are books on Jewish life in Russia that aren't just hidden away with expensive university presses - the more or less antisemitic attitudes of a succession of Tsars are usually mentioned at some point during each reign, and how this affected policies towards Jews. Montefiore presents these indictments and fluctuations methodically without overt ranting, in a way one suspects his Victorian collateral ancestor would have been proud of The Romanovs ruled Russia for 300 years. This book catalogues the rise and fall of the dynasty, atop a multi ethnic empire spanning one sixth of the globe.Nicholas started a disastrous war with Japan in 1904 that greatly weakened his standing at home and abroad. At home he was beset by constant unrest from revolutionary groups carrying out assassinations, bombings and ordinary crime to raise money. The Okhrana grew infiltrating and closely surveilling revolutionaries. In January 1905, 160,000 workers went on strike in Petersburg and marched on the Winter Palace to deliver a petition for better conditions. To stop them, soldiers killed over one thousand and thousands more were wounded. Known as Bloody Sunday, this incident hardened both sides. That year would see riots, strikes, and assassinations greatly increase across Russia. Some areas were completely controlled by dissidents. Nicholas conducted a punitive counter revolution with officially 15,000 killed, 45,000 deported and 70,000 arrested. The actual count was far higher. Separately pogroms killed thousands of Jews. While not initiated by Nicholas, he praised those who conducted them. Rasputin’s powerful influence on the ruling family infuriated nobles, church leaders and peasants alike. Many saw him as a religious charlatan. Russian nobles, eager to end the cleric’s influence, had Rasputin murdered on December 16, 1916. The remains of the family were discovered in a mass grave in the Ural Mountains in 1991. Subsequent DNA testing confirmed the identities of the Nicholas, Alexandra and three of their daughters. Simon Russell Beale is an excellent and involving narrator (notwithstanding a handful of mispronunciations, largely non-Russian words such as Circassian and Białowieża, which probably indicate that the 'pronunciation consultant' credited at the end was solely a Russian specialist). I would gladly listen to more read by him, but it seems that this is the only audiobook he's done, and Wikipedia would suggest that he usually has more than enough work as a highly regarded stage actor.

One feels sorrow for the children when they are killed by Bolsheviks, but it’s hard to feel sorry for the empress of the emperor, being such pigheaded religious ecstatics. I haven’t even touched on the story of Rasputin. That, reader, will set your hair on fire! His poor handling of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, subsequent 1905 uprising of Russian Workers—known as Bloody Sunday—and Russia’s involvement in World War I hastened the fall of the Russian Empire.Gripping and cleverly plotted. Doomed love at the heart of a violent society is the heart of Montefiore's One Night in Winter... depicting the Kafkaesque labyrinth into which the victims stumble." The Sunday Times