European Royalty discussion

Feel free to discuss anything about Nicholas and Alexandra in this thread. If you (and others) are here, you (and they) have finished the book, so don't worry about posting spoilers. If you haven't finished the book, you may not want to read anything here yet!

Also, please let us know how you rated the book (3/5, 4 of 5, however you choose)!

I love how devoted Nicholas and Alexandra were to each other and their children. They truly seemed in love with each other.

As I'm reading the chapter entitled "The Government Disintegrates," I can't help but draw comparisons between the Russian situation and that of the French before the 1789 revolution. I find it interesting that Marie Antoinette carried so much blame for her country's problems, yet in truth she had little influence on either domestic or foreign affairs. But from this book I am learning that Alexandra's influence (actually Rasputin's, through her) was disastrous, yet I've never heard much about her in terms of responsibility for the Russian Revolution. Lenin is the name always attached to that. It's amazing how much damage can be done by an unqualified person wielding too much power!

Just finished the book - I gave it 4 stars. I'm cutting and pasting my review:
Nicholas and Alexandra is a hefty book filled with tiny print, and it took me awhile to get through it, but it was definitely worth it. I haven't studied much Russian history, so this book was filled with new things for me to learn. Massie shows that the fate of the Russian Revolution was greatly affected by the fact that the heir to the Russian throne, Tsarevich Alexis, was born with hemophilia. His frequent near-death experiences made his tormented mother Alexandra susceptible to the influence of the "mad monk" Rasputin, who admittedly was repeatedly (and inexplicably) able to brink Alexis back from the brink of the grave. Alexandra and Tsar Nicholas had a strong marriage, and ruled together as true autocrats, so by gaining their confidence, and then dependence, Rasputin was able to wield inordinate power. Particularly when Nicholas was at the front during World War I, and Alexandra was ruling alone in St. Petersburg, the entire government was reorganized based solely on personal allegiance to the "holy man" (whose perpetual sexual depravities were then evident to everyone but the loyal Empress). This led to a government staffed by unqualified toadies, who proved completely unable to defuse the revolutionary proletariat. And into this vacuum stepped Lenin, and the rest is history.

So did Tsarevich Alexis's hemophilia cause the Russian Revolution? Of course there are many factors to be considered, but Massie makes a compelling case that one boy's genetic misfortune ultimately doomed the Imperial system. The partial revolution of 1905 and the creation of the Duma was moving Russia toward a "responsible government" before World War I. As late as 1916 Lenin wrote that he believed the revolutionary tension had been defused and that the rise of the proletariat would not happen in his lifetime. As Massie writes, "Had it not been for the agony of Alexis's hemophilia, had it not been for the desperation which made his mother turn to Rasputin, first to save her son, then to save the pure autocracy, might not Nicholas II have continued retreating into the role of constitutional monarch so happily filled by his cousin King George V? It might have happened." And how different the world might have been...

I think Alexandra became a easy target for the Russian people. She was not well liked or accepted since she was of German blood and her blind following of Rasputin was disatrous for the Russian royals. Rasputin must have had some kind of power- I've read elsewhere that he accomplished things through the use of hypnosis and was quite popular with the high society and nobility ladies. The tsars also were made to believe that they were chosen by God to rule and really didn't take advice from outsiders. Ithink this was a huge problem for Nicholas. I'm not sure if he was a bit naive or was not really aware of what was going on in his country. With the Tsarevich's illness lots of rumors began to swirl around the family and I am not sure if his hemophilia was revealed that this would have garnered any sympathy for the family.

It would have been very interesting to see someone like Rasputin in person. It seems like there must have been something in his personality that drew people to him because when I look at photos I just don't get it, but I have also read that the high society ladies liked him.

I know this is a bit off topic but when Rasputin was murdered he had been poisoned, beaten, stabbed or shot too and was thrown into the river- presumed dead. It turned out that he died from drowning. I don't know how he survived all of that to drown in the river because the amount of poison he ingested was huge and then to have all those other things inflicted upon him too just goes to show what a " unique" man he was.
I don't know what the ladies found in him sexually but if you look at pictures of him he has the most haunting, mesmerizing stare.

He was clearly highly charismatic.

So I gave it 4/5 stars... I really liked it!! And my review is below..
I continually struggle with reading non-fiction... I love learning about history, but there are very few non-fiction history books that I've actually gotten through. But, this one was so interesting that I had no trouble with it!! It moved quickly and tall the info/facts were interesting. I am looking forward to reading more books by this author!

Rasputin scares me!! I totally get what was said about his eyes, just creepy. I wish I could meet him, even though it would be scary. I would want to know what he thought...

Well written!

Massie became interested in this story because he had a son who suffered from hemophilia.

The weird thing to me about Rasputin was how dirty he was and how he smelled so badly. Charisma aside, I still don't understand how the high society ladies or anyone else for that matter could be intimate with him.

I read Nicholas and Alexandra in 1980, and in spite of the passage of time, I remember well the deep sadness I felt about the Romanov family being murdered in Ekaterinburg on July 16th, 1918. It need not have happened. George V of England could have taken them in were it not a possibility that by doing so, he would lose his throne as well. (The British Royal Family, up to 1917, had the name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, indicative of its Germanic side. Anti-German sentiment in the UK ran high in 1917, which is why the Royal Family changed its name to the very English name Windsor.)

Nicholas' obstinacy doomed him and his family. If not England, why not Sweden?

I really enjoyed this book though it took me awhile to plow through it. It's such a depressing story and even though we all know how it ends, the exact details made it all the more chilling. As others have mentioned, I also am surprised at how attractive Rasputin was to ladies of means. He really must have been a hypnotist because if he smelled half as bad as I imagined, no one would go near him! This story is another example of how secrets can lead to the downfall of a family. There were too many secrets kept from the French royal family prior to the revolution and now the Romonovs, determined to keep Alexis' illness a secret, alienated their people. It's interesting that the French were angry over the amount of money their king & queen were spending yet the russian royals were so thrifty.

Another point I found interesting was how close Nicholas was to George V and how close Alix was to her grandmother. although we k ow that all European royalty is somehow related to Victoria, I don't often get that they're as close as a regular family. It was nice to see but heartbreaking that nothing could be done to save them.