The Fate of the Romanovs

Rating:
Summary: Such a sad book
Review: The authors seem desperate for credibility. One author even posted two 5-stars reviews for themselves. Most people can find a place with access to Amazon to post their own opinions. The sad fact is that not one academic has sanctioned this book. Instead an unknown author and Anastasia supporters also post two 5-star reviews. It would seem reasonable to request that have an Ivy League scholar voice an opinion. I don't doubt they worked hard but they are wrong-headed. I did not enjoy this book or find anything substantial in this account.

Rating:
Summary: A Comprehensive Summation and Refutation
Review: The Fate of the Romanovs is a highly detailed, heavily footnoted book which thoroughly investigates the final months of the last Russian Imperial Family. This is a subject which has been covered many times, but never so thoroughly as have Greg King and Penny Wilson, who document almost every step Nicholas, Alexandra, their children and faithful servants took from Tsarskoe Seloe to Ekaterinburg. In the process, many romantic and political cobwebs have been swept away from the story of the last Tsar, his family and associates, and their fates.

There is no doubt that Nicholas II was a good and loving husband and father, but King and Wilson also depict his frustrating fatalism and passivity (and anti-Semitism which was extraordinary even by the standards of his time). Similarly, Alexandra was a devoted mother but possessive to the point of neurosis with her husband and children. The five children were normal adolescents, not angels. Most interestingly, the loyal servants who died with the family are here given biographies and personalities for the first time, as are the Ekaterinburg guards, who were not brutes but young men and boys who developed warm (sometimes romantic) feelings for their captives and wept over their bodies. (Some even committed suicide in remorse.) King and Wilson describe how the legend of the saintly family and their brutal imprisonment developed out of political and religious considerations well after the events took place, and document the real story for the first time. They do a particularly good job of exposing the anti-Semitic intentions of many of the first investigations of the murders, which were apparently undertaken not so much as to solve the mystery as to blame the whole thing on the Communists and Jews.

The period leading up to the massacre is carefully reconstructed. King and Wilson absolve Lenin of directly ordering the murders and maintain the decision was made by a panicky Ural Soviet as an army which would have rescued the Tsar closed in on Ekaterinburg. The massacre itself is described in every gory detail, as is the long drawn out and bumbling process through which the bodies were removed and buried.

Here King and Wilson would like to find a way to revive the Anastasia controversy, but even though Anastasia and Alexis are undeniably missing from their family's grave, they can find no evidence that anyone was able to escape. The mystery of the two missing bodies will have to remain a mystery until someone finally finds their burial site in that forest outside Ekaterinburg.

In the final chapters King and Wilson provide some updated information about the rediscovery of the bodies in the 1970s and early 1990s, with some indications that the Soviet and later Russian governments were heavily involved in making sure the investigations came out without too many embarrassing details being revealed. More recent material on the DNA analysis of the bones is also included, but there's nothing that alters the certain identification of the imperial family and their servants.

The investigation and the DNA research lead into the controversies over the funeral held in St. Petersburg in 1998 and the differing positions of several branches of the Russian Orthodox Church on whether the family should have been beatified or given lesser honors. King and Wilson also touch upon the split within the present day Romanov family itself, but are clearly supportive of the Vladimirovichi side and dismissive of the rights of the other Romanov branches. (For more information on the Romanov split, read Robert Massie's The Romanovs: The Final Chapter.)

The Fate of the Romanovs is the clearest and most detailed summary of everything that is known about the deaths of the Romanovs now available. For that reason, and also because it clears away a lot of myths and legends that have grown up in the 85 years since Ekaterinburg, it belongs in the collection of every Russian and Romanov history student.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating for any history buff
Review: The mark of a good history book is if it makes the reader interested enough in the subject to want to know more. "Fate of the Romanovs" certainly did this for me. Exhaustively researched, thoroughly discussed and referenced, this book clearly shows the passion it's authors have for Russia's past. Although I'm a student of history, this is my first exposure to the times of Imperial Russia. It certainly won't be my last. This book has inspired me to know more, and I can think of no higher praise.

Rating:
Summary: Misses the point
Review: The primary fault with this book is the reluctance of its authors to take seriously the charge that there were other, more sinister forces behind the murder of the Royal Family. Around page 360, the authors mention and briefly discuss the bizarre writings on the wall of the death chamber, though in the case of the Cabalistic inscriptions, the authors claim they cannot be deciphered and do not even attempt to evaluate the research that exists in regard to it. Instead, given the context within which these writings take place within the book, the suggestion seems to be that virulent, antisemitic forces have used them to their advantage to discredit the Bolsheviks and foment anti jewish sentiment.

But what of the writings and their occultic overtones? For those who speak Russian, consider the following: the Russian word for sickle is serp; the Russian word for hammer is molet. Now, when they are spelled backwards, one gets pres and tolem. If we combine these words
we get prestolem which in Russian has a double meaning: it can mean either the throne of the King or the altar of the church. Is it just coincidence that certain occultic rites involve speaking certain words backwards and that, in the case of the Soviet symbols, we have and inversion of the Kingdom of God on earth? And what is one to make of the symbols themselves? If one consults a dictionary of symbols, one learns that the sickle is associated with Saturn, the figure responsible for separating men from the gods; his symbol is also associated with Satan. The hammer is a symbol of the demiurge, the great architect which resonates with masonry. Now, when one considers the star that sits above the sickle and hammer, we have the star of Sirius which in occultic and hermetic lore would later be associated with the all-seeing eye, the very eye that sits atop the pyramid on the back of the US dollar bill. Also of note is the shape of these symbols on the Soviet flag: draw lines along the implied border that frames them and one has a pyramidal structure as well with the eye of Sirius sitting atop. Now, what about the murder of the Tsar? He was a serious Orthodox believer, defending the largest Orthodox country, one which, due to Stolypin's thinking, was set to introduce changes in the issuing of money and the ability of non-governmental agents to issue debt and debt finance economic ventures. Why would anyone want to kill him, wipe out his family, de-Christianize the country, and cripple it for years to come, especially when the economic indicators and reforms introduced prior to the revolution were overwhelmingly successful and positive? If this sounds fantastic, please investigate Operation Keelhaul and then return to this book and see if the authors' claims against conspiracy hold water.

Rating:
Summary: A landmark book
Review: This is the most important book on the Romanovs to appear since Edward Radzinsky's The Last Tsar. (William Clarke's 1994 Lost Fortune Of the Tsar is also a crucial text.)

The black/white reviewer opinions expressed here are because it rightly strips away the romanticism that has enveloped the family since Robert Massie's superb, but skewed, Nicholas and Alexandra...the book which kicked off the modern Romanov boom. And of course, that doesn't go down well with many deluded Romanov fanatics. However, the historical truth is far more interesting than the usual mauve mist of platitudes. King and Wilson allow us to see this family as they really were. Highlighting their all-too-human inadequacies - and deep they were - doesn't make the story any less compelling.

Both N&A were monumentally unsuited for their roles: he was charming, but weak and extraordinarily foolish; she was freezingly devoid of charm or humor, fatally interfering, and a religious hysteric.(Small wonder she appeals to the same mentality that moons over that charming, but manipulative basketcase, Diana Princess of Wales.) The characters and actions of N&A drove the majority of their contemporaries who knew them well to utter and complete dispair - including the extended Romanov family, the majority of whom by 1917 were ready to endorse - if they weren't already actively campaigning- for their removal from the throne. Their fate was awful, but N&A were never innocent victims.

As the authors state, this book will hardly be the last word on the subject, but it is a landmark work of outstanding research that will be consistently cited by future authors, and ia a must-read for anyone interested in the subject.

Rating:
Summary: One Great Book
Review: This was a great book, I really like how it brought down the Romanovs from the pedastal that so many people put them on, and made them real people with faults.The best parts of the book are definatly the last days of the family, which really puts so much in perspective compared to other books. The parts about finding the bodies while well written are a bit boring but still provide a lot of interesting info. I'd say this is one of the best Romanov books out there.
One thing though, as I was scrolling through the reviews I noticed an arguement through half of them between the authors and people who've reviewed the book badly. Not to be rude but this really ruins credibility, and makes us all think that you can't accept it that some won't like your book. It's a controversial subject after all, and not everyone will agree with you. I also think its inappropriate to attack the author in a review. It's supposed to be about reviewing books,not argueing.

Rating:
Summary: A little skimpy and unfulfilling
Review: Two historians take a new look at the final days of Russia's Tsar Nicholas II and his family, using new information that has come to light since the exhumation of their hidden bodies. Much of what has been written about the assassinations of the Romanovs is inaccurate, according to King and Wilson, who provide details that are graphic and at times gruesome. "Two generations have passed since the Ekaterinburg murders," write the authors. "Yet somehow, the events of that night, and its victims, stand at the forefront of public interest." There is no doubt that fascination in this tragic family will continue for time to come. Say King and Wilson: "Perversely, in death, the once-despised emperor and his family have become all things to all people, embodying romance, sentiment, nostalgia, national pride, religion, and myth. This is the true fate of the Romanovs." But their own research is frustratingly incomplete and begs more questions than it answers.