The true tragedy of the last Romanovs was a failure of imagination. Both during his last disastrous months in office and throughout the slowly unfolding catastrophe of his imprisonment, Nicholas II failed to conceive of how quickly the world around him could change, or just how desperate and ruthless the revolutionaries could be. A similar naivety was shown by his would-be rescuers.
Helen Rappaport’s frank and brilliant study of the various efforts to save the Romanovs begins, intelligently, with the race to save them from themselves. Their downfall began in 1916 as the course of the first world war began to run against Russia. Nicholas reacted by attempting to take personal control of the war effort, leaving his foolish, hysterical wife Alexandra and her spiritual mentor Grigori Rasputin in charge in Petrograd. Some of the most surprising material in the book concerns the mass efforts by European royal cousins as well as closer Romanov family members to avert the obvious disaster with personal letters, diplomatic entreaties and even threats of a palace coup.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in