4.5 stars, this is fascinating and detailed and so sad. I would have liked some perspective from the peasants and lower class of the country regarding their feelings towards the Romanovs, as they are painted quite innocent and gentle here. I don't doubt that they were, and their time helping in the hospital is admirable, but I wonder how much privilege they realized they had.
Anastasia was a favorite movie when I was little, so this is even more sad knowing it is all fiction. ( )

Read by Xe Sands
"Princess Diana's of their time"
a story of the Romanovs girls and their family.
( )

Em 17 de julho de 1918, quatro jovens mulheres desceram 32 degraus até o porão de uma casa em Ecaterimburgo, na Rússia. A mais velha tinha 22 anos e a mais nova, apenas dezessete. Junto com os pais e o irmão de treze anos, foram cruelmente assassinadas. Seus crimes: serem filhas do último tsar da Rússia. Muita coisa foi escrita sobre Nicolau II, sua mulher Alexandra e o trágico destino da família imperial, como também sobre a Revolução Russa de 1917, mas pouco se disse sobre o drama das princesas Romanov, que sempre foram vistas como personagens secundárias dessa trama. Em As irmãs Romanov, no entanto, a aclamada biógrafa Helen Rappaport traz a história delas para o centro da narrativa e oferece aos leitores o mais completo relato da vida das grã-duquesas Olga, Tatiana, Maria e Anastácia. Tendo por base as cartas e os diários das jovens e em fontes primárias nunca antes examinadas, Rappaport desenha um quadro vívido das irmãs nos últimos dias da dinastia Romanov. Seguimos as grã-duquesas desde o nascimento, passando pela infância superprotegida, até os anos de juventude ― as primeiras paixões, os sonhos, a dificuldade de lidar com um irmão hemofílico e uma mãe cronicamente inválida ― e, por fim, o trauma da Revolução e suas terríveis consequências. Com um texto instigante, baseado em uma pesquisa meticulosa, As irmãs Romanov dá voz a essas quatro jovens e é capaz de comover leitores um século depois de suas mortes trágicas e prematuras.

at times, the writing flowered into something cinematic...not on the tragic _Zhivago_ scale, but the quotidian, devastating intimacy of a lost Sofia Coppola mash-up: the homely insularity of _The Virgin Suicides_ in a_Marie Antoinette_ setting. I wished, throughout, that SCoppola would option this book; it might seem a retread, but--oh my stars--how I would love to see that movie.

(otherwise, I was, of course, dismayed by own interest, however pedestrian, in a royal family. in exile, evidently, Nicky read aloud _The Scarlet Pimpernel_, and really, if I have to choose, I'm def Team Death To The Aristos/Long Live The Republic...and then I remember that the brutality of the Reds ruined Marxism for everybody. the idea that we have to choose murder along with humane government is ridiculous/why we can't anything nice.) ( )

I have long been fascinated with the events that led up to the tragic murder of these young girls. This is a different view than most, since it focuses on the Grand Duchesses much more intensely than most histories of this time do. You cannot be a human being and not wonder at the state of mind of this family as it waited and hoped only to face such an ignoble end in a filthy basement room.

For those who were politically involved in the revolution, this might have seemed like the only solution...make it impossible for anyone of Romanov blood to ever claim the throne again...but from a human standpoint it reminds me of tales of the Holocaust in which you wonder how anyone could have so little humanity about them. Evidence is that these girls and even their father would have been no threat to the Bolsheviks. Not once after his abdication did Nicholas II attempt to rally anyone to fight against the surrender of the government of his behalf.

It is sad to read about the difficult lives these girls lived (often despite their privileged position in society), their quite, calm, accepting natures, and their simple naive personalities. It must have all seemed a bit surreal to them as it unraveled. I wonder if anyone I know could have handled that situation with the kind of courage and aplomb with which they did. I know I could not have.

To say you "enjoyed" such a morose read sounds almost perverse, but I am a lover of history and willing to look the evil side of it in the face when necessary. I think we can see this from such a different view point than those who were there at the time. Like so many bloody revolutions, this one brought the reign of Stalin and something far more evil than the Tsar the country had overthrown. You cannot help thinking of all the places along the road when Nicholas II might have bent and changed their fate, or when he might have been more astute and saved their lives. But, such is the sadness of history...it can never be changed. ( )