I finally finished The Rasputin File
All autocrats must fall – and there’s no love lost between me and the Tsar (I’m sure he’s devastated to discover this) – but my main interest here is (as always) a psychological one. First of all – there were signs everywhere that the world was changing, and that their regime would end. Everyone sensed it. It added to the craziness of the time. She was a symbol of a world that was about to die. Her husband obviously was weak, ineffectual, and completely whipped by her (or, perhaps, just hopelessly in love, which is also a possibility)- but I found myself secretly cheering for him when he would “disobey” her, or not respond to one of her letters.
I wanted to scream at her: GIVE. YOUR HUSBAND (did I mention he was the Tsar for God’s sake??) SOME BREATHING SPACE. LET HIM CHOOSE HIS OWN MINISTER OF FINANCE. LET HIM MAKE HIS OWN DECISIONS.
STOP. EMASCULATING HIM.
I felt that if she said the words “Our Friend” one more time my head would spontaneously explode. Our Friend Our Friend Our Friend Our Friend Our Friend … that’s all I ever hear.
STOP.
Despite my annoyance – I can see that she is also a hugely tragic figure. Not tragic because she tried to be great and failed. But tragic because she was born about 2 generations too late. Her world was dead, and she was the last to figure it out.
This book, more than ever, really highlighted her insanity, perhaps brought about by her son’s hemophilia, and her fears for his welfare. Letter after letter after letter to her husband on the front (there’s even more of them included in Nicholas and Alexandra – the woman just NEVER STOPPED) … telling him what to do, to keep “Our Friend’s advice” in mind, telling him to be stronger – more autocratic – over and over and over – the same litany …. The woman was RELENTLESS. No wonder Nicky seemed rather apathetic and indifferent at the very end of his life – kind of accepting of his doom. He must have been like, “Phew … Now I can just sit in a chair and read – although I am under house arrest … and not have to field her 20 letters every day telling me what to do.”
Alexandra thought that Rasputin was God. I wonder if on some level that she was WILLFULLY ignorant. I believe that there are some people who, no matter what signs are given them, what crystal clear messages are provided – they will still choose the most self-destructive path. Either out of stubbornness, or needing to be RIGHT, being unable to admit weakness or fallibility – pride – whatever. And I think Alexandra took that to its most extreme. I think her stubborn pride actually ended up driving her mad. It must have been horrible. It must have been absolutely horrible to be inside her psyche in those last years. A frenzy. A psychological frenzy. Masked by haughty indifference to her own fate, and an iron will to keep going on her chosen path.
“Sheila Yells at Dead People” — I think it’s a whole new series. Hahahahahaha!
I remember seeing “Nicholas and Alexandra” in high school and becoming obsessed with them. Oh, then I remember the recurring nightmares I had of my family being executed just like the Romanovs. Neato.
Oh, and the grand duchesses frenziedly sewing jewels into their corsets … It’s all just chilling!! Horrible horrible image of their last moments. It is a nightmare.
But man. I have just HAD it with Alexandra. Seriously.
I wonder how she would have fared if SHE had been empress, like her grandmother Victoria, and could have made her own mistakes and lived with the consequences herself. I don’t think Victoria (who as you know raised her after her mother died) taught her to be so insistent on autocracy. That must have been the Prussian in her. That kind of government is doomed anyway.
Oh I’ve missed these rants for the past few days. : )
i’m reading The Romanov Prophecy right now, which deals a [very] little with that sort, but somehow i think your read was much better and will be much more rewarding. mine’s historical fiction, anyway..
glad to have you back!
I love the way you refer to them as “Nicky” and write stuff like “yo, bitch needs to back off.” Hahahaha.
I, too, have read a number of books about N&A and find her willful blindness towards the world around her and her behavior towards her husband fascinating in kind of a horrifying way.
I recently read a book called “Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria” by Julie Gelardi which profiles the lives of 5 of the most interesting granddaughters of QV. One of them is Alexandra. Another is Marie of Romania.
One of the things I learned from that book was that Nicholas II of Russia actually fell in love with Marie of Romania first. He wrote her very passionate letters over several years and desperately wanted to marry her but his/her parents (and maybe QV too) wouldn’t allow it. So back on the marriage market he went which is where he encountered Alexandra. It is interesting to think what the world could be like today if he had been allowed to marry Marie – who apparently was warm, encouraging, funloving, etc… Maybe if Marie had been his wife he would have been more open to the changing events in the early 1900’s and would have been able to share his power with some sort of democratic legislature …. which then hopefully would have taken the wind out of the Bolshevik’s sails, averted communism, etc… Also, Marie was by all accounts a gregarious person who was well loved by the Romanians. Alexandra did not have that kind of charisma which played a large part in why the Romanovs grew to be so despised by the Russian people.
On a final note, Nicholas II’s mother, Dagmar was a fasinating woman in her own right. She was the sister to Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII. There are several biographies of Dagmar out on the market and I would highly recommend reading one.
Shari – wow, awesome comment.
It’s such a tangled web – I study all the family trees at the beginning of all of these books, trying to keep everyone straight in my mind – it’s rather hard, but I feel like I’m getting there now. Like Grand Duke Sergei was a homosexual and he was married to Ella – who was Alexandra’s sister. After Sergei was murdered – Ella renounced this world and went into a convent. But it took me about 3 books to be able to feel like I didn’t have to constnatly go back to the family tree, and go: “Now … WHO is that again???”
There was once an Onion article titled “Russian Army Continuing to Kill Rasputin.” Of course, this post makes me think one thing foremost – “Our (Dead Mad Monk Boy) Friend.”
More seriously – the Tsar, Archduke Ferdinand, the twilight of the British Empire, Theodore Roosevelt, the dawn of aviation, applied electricity, women’s suffrage, Twain and Kipling and Conan Doyle… The first fifteen years of the 20th century were just something else. In some ways we have more in common with the 60’s and 50’s than the 20’s have with the teens or aughts. The whole world seemed to flip over.
Empress Alexandra, Princess Michael of Kent: the parallels are uncanny. Well, aren’t they? ;-)
Nightfly, have you read Barbara Tuchman’s The Proud Tower? It stretches out the time period you’re talking about to cover the 25 years before the war, but I don’t think you could be more right.
Dave – I haven’t. It will have to go on the list. Still working through Theodore Rex first.