The Romanovs: 1613-1918

Simon Sebag Montefiore is one of the preeminent narrative historians of our time. His history of Jerusalem and his history of the 'Court' of Stalin the Red Tsar are books informed by vast knowledge of his subjects and meticulous research. Yet, all of his books are written with verve and keen insight into the motives of the principal players. This book on the Romanovs is somewhat different in that Montefiore really has written an actual biography of a whole family. The events and people impinging on their lives from the outside world and foreign autocrats and, later, foreign republicans (small 'r') are duly presented. But, make no mistake: this is a very personal story of a family. Starting with the first Romanov tsar, Michael I, the author follows the ups and downs of the family until the bitter end in the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg. It's all here: intrigue, murder, betrayal, foolishness, some nobility, and sex -- lots of sex. Erotomania has, of course, been a feature of many a dynasty but seriously, the Romanovs, to put it mildly, just couldn't get enough. Catherine the Great, according to Montefiore, always had to be in love. Alexander II exchanged letters with his mistress that are so steamy that I felt like a voyeur reading them. And, unfortunately, the reader is 'treated' to one too many of the sexy billets-doux. Even the uxorious Nicholas II and his dim-witted tsarina Alexandra got cutesy by naming their private parts in their correspondence. A little of that went a long way. This is not to say that this book is all sex: I referred to it simply because, if nothing else, it brought these august people to life and made real human beings out of them. What is overwhelming is the utter foreigness of this clan to western eyes. There is Peter the Great killing his heir in a rage, the empress Anna humiliating one of her most eminent courtiers (from an old noble family) by making him wear a chicken outfit and sitting in a nest making clucking noises in front of the court. After church he would be joined by Anna's circus of freaks also dressed 'au poulet' and they would all cluck away. Hard to imagine this happening in the courts of Louis XV and George II, let alone the dismal Prussian court. The chapter on Paul is just as fascinating but his end rises to the level of Grand Guignol. Montefiore's assessment of Alexander I is well-reasoned and rescues him from his inevitable disparagement from writers enthralled by Alexander's glittery contemporary Napoleon. When Montefiore gets to Alexander II, the reader is at last given a portrait of overall the most attractive of all the Romanov rulers. He tried hard to reform his sclerotic country but he was frustrated by inertia and the dead hand of custom at every turn. Even his reforms were not enough for the revolutionaries and nihilists that hunted him down like an animal. His end was sad and his successors Alexander III and Nicholas II were singularly unqualified to build on his work. There is no need to rehash the dismal drama of the reign of Nicholas II, but Montefiore incisively demonstrates just how unqualified Nicholas was for the job of tsar. I already knew this, but the author's insights are fresh. What is really eye-popping is his trashing of Alexandra. Far from being the sympathetic character traditionally presented in history books, she was incredibly stupid, overbearing, and vicious. Her relationship with Rasputin is closely examined by the author. Rasputin and Alexandra might not have been the proximate cause of the collapse of the dynasty, but they definitely knocked out some key props of the throne. Apropos of Rasputin, Montefiore's account of his demise is fascinating, at least, and at most sensational as he posits that Yusupov had help from the British secret service. Well, it was new to me. The bottom line: this book reads like a novel and is one of the most fascinating books I have read in a while. Other readers might wish for more on the structure of the Russian government, monetary policy, more military history, and any number of things. However, this book is presented as an intimate account of an entire family, warts and all. In Montefiore's hands, the Romanovs have found their Suetonius, only with deeper scholarship. 4.5 stars.

In this history of the Romanov dynasty, Montefiore does a good job of narrating three centuries of Russian history. Yes, he focuses mostly on the Romanovs and a few other very wealthy and powerful families, but that is the nature of this book. He also focuses way too much on the reign of Nicholas II (almost 25% of the book). Anyone going into this book looking for a more detailed history of Russia would do better to find a history of Russia such as this one Russia: A History Many people know the most familiar Romanovs - Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and Nicholas II, but there were about 20 Romanov rulers during the three centuries covered in this book. From Catherine I, wife of Peter the Great who ruled in her own right, and Elizabeth to Alexander I who fought against Napoleon and Alexander II who freed the serfs and dreamed of liberalizing Russia, there are many more rulers of Russia that deserve to be known as part of the story of the Romanovs. This book does a good job of informing you about these people. In the process you get to learn about Russia and how it changed over the three centuries covered here. But there were serious problems in this book. Mainly it has to do with some idiotic statements made by the author. Things like this "Paul himself was so angered by the whims of female rule that he and Maria secretly signed a sensible law of succession to be issued when he became tsar, based on male primogeniture". Seriously, one of the best rulers during this time was Catherine the Great and use the word 'whims' to describe it is flabbergasting. And male primogeniture is "sensible"? Why is it sensible? The author quickly states it was to avoid the instability of the 18th century but this was a time when Russia did quite well on the world stage. Then there's these two little gems - "Every wife knows that the best way to save a marriage is to befriend the husband’s mistress" and "In any marriage, one should not underestimate the power of nagging". With bon mots like these who needs real history? Then there are some real oddities and anachronisms. Montefiore uses words like perestroika and glasnost to describe events centuries before the 1980s. This is odd. This book sometimes reads gossip magazine, describing who slept with whom and who was a metrosexual (Alexander I apparently who liked to rub his face with ice to tighten his skin). Montefiore sometimes seems to describe the Romanovs as if they were a cabinet of curiosities - there was too much focus on the grotesque, salacious and sensationalist in the book. And don't get me started on who apparently took the first selfie. Still, there are very few books that cover the entire dynastic sweet of the Romanovs. This remains a good book to learn about the overall history. And you will learn a lot which is why I gave it four stars rather than three. It will help you understand what is going on in today's Russia too as there are similarities between the reign of the current ruler and the Romanovs. After reading this I highly recommend reading a few other books - anything by Massie really.

What an amazing read, this book is both shocking and enthralling, I literally could not put it down. It's a story of power, love, glory, magnificence, and lust, it is totally accessible, and reads like a movie of a family saga, no wonder it had been compared to Game of Thrones, and the TV series the Tudors. it's a story about Russia that explains so much of what's happening today in 2016. The book travels all the way from Ivan the Terrible to the last Tzar Nicholas II, but it also continued right up to Stalin and Putin. The debauchery, the sex, the violence, and the cruelty are beyond belief. A family saga filled with ambition, glamour, sadisim, and sexual excess. Brides are poisoned, fathers tortured their sons to death, sons kill fathers, wife murder husband, giants and freaks are collected, dwarfs are tossed and slaughtered. It's a most colorful collection of characters you can imagine, there's not a boring page. It's also about character and personality, some of the strongest Romanovs were women, who were portrayed so sensitively, and some of the stupidest and cruelest were women too. In one sense this book is all about power and in another it's all about character and family. So much of the story is told in moving love letters, such as between Nicholas and Alexandra. Montefiore starts the book with a teenage boy called Michael Romanov who becomes Tzar in 1613, and over 300 years later another little boy Alexei Romanov is murdered with his entire family including his sisters and their parents in 1918. It's an unfortunate and heartbreaking beginning of book. Soon we are meeting the horrifying and fascinating character Peter the Great who tortures his own son to death, but who makes Russia a great modern power. Montefiore brings him to life, I can't forget the scene where Peter had his beautiful mistress be-headed, then lifts up the gorgeous head by the hair , kisses the lips and then gives the crowd a lesson on the anatomy of the neck, head, and windpipe. Then there is his wife Catherine I whom he found of a promiscuous peasant girl and made into Russia's first empress in her own right. Then we meet the cruel empress Anna, one who collected a bizarre circus of freaks including the handless, the hunchback, and the legless, arranged dwarf tossing and dwarf fighting tournaments, the dwarfs amused her by going to bed with lactating goats in a night dress. When she died she was succeeded by a regent who lived in a lesbian threesome. She was overthrown by the lovely beautiful empress Elizabeth, who enjoyed multiple simultaneous lovers while exercising a tyrant of fashion of haute couture over her court, she is very much a heroine for all readers of vogue or Pret-a-Porte, a prototype fashionista. She brought a German princess to Russia who became Catherine the Great, Montefiore gives a brilliant portrayal of Catherine the Great a woman of intellectual brilliance and personal charm, he shows exactly how she lived her famous love life. As she got older she took younger and younger lovers, but the real love of her life was prince Potemkin known as Serenissimus, a totally fascinating and brilliant character ( Angelina Jolie had apparently bought some rights to Montefiore's earlier book Catherine and Potemkin , I hope she plays her) To reach power Catherine's husband was murdered. Of the twelve Tzars 6 were murdered, being a Romanov was a dangerous job. My favorite latest Tzar was Alexander II, his love affair with his mistress princess katya is both romantic and tragic but their love letters are quite something. Be warned they are highly explicit, surely the sexiest letters ever written by a head of state, they are totally hot stuff even by the standards of the 21st century sexting The book ends with the amazing account of Nicholas, Alexandera ( I haven't realized how crazy she was ) and Rasputin. What a tragic family, but they brought so much of their troubles upon themselves. The portrayal of Rasputin is totally unforgettable he was a mystic and a fony, but either way the climax comes with his murder, a totally thrilling scene. Then comes the revolution and the terrible story of the slaughter of the entire family by the vile Bolshevism I was dazzled by the crazy magnificence of this family, but I also cried at the heartbreaking scenes, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this, written beautifully , it's narrative is magical and gripping. As you can tell I strongly recommend this book .

Some of the criticisms of this brilliant book miss the point. Montefiore has written a sweeping, thrilling, occasionally funny, always thoughtful examination of the ENTIRE dynasty, 300 plus years of it. He describes what he feels is a Russan problem: the desire of a ruler with absolute power to exercise complete control, and the needs of a vast country for a government that can function efficiently, and a military that is disciplined, prepared and professional. There is a built in clash in these needs, one felt by the tsars and empresses and by Lenin and Stalin (about whom Montefiore has written an absorbing two-volume biography) -- the insistence of the autocrat that all of his/her power be felt constantly, and the fact that government bureaucracy and military organization need a degree of autonomy and continuity. Montefiore does not scant the many remarkable and/or heinous personalities of the various tsarist courts but his continual theme is the challenge of governing by fiat, or whim, or crazy impulse and the resulting chaos, discontinuity, policy reversals, mass murders, ill-advised or badly fought wars, astoundingly complex intrigue and manipulation, resulting finally in the horrible murders of the last tsar, his entire immediate family, and most of his relatives. But even Nicholas ll did not want to cede absolute power, though he might have lived if he had. Of course, incredible figures such as Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Alexander ll deserve full books (and have gotten them -- Montefiore himself wrote a compelling book examining the relationship between Catherine and the remarkable Potemkin, known during their affair as "Cyclops" because he had lost an eye!). But in The Romanovs Montefiore uses a huge range of research especially into their private papers, available for the first time in many cases to him, to let autocrats great and deeply flawed and their confidants and victims speak for themselves in their genius, seductiveness, craziness, and cruelty, Although the book is immensely researched and carefully documented Montefiore has an "old fashioned" sweeping narrative style. The energy and color in his writing make are irresistible. He has a sense of humor about the many myths that collected around the famous Romanovs, and he explodes them with wit and understanding. But when dealing with facts he is sharp-eyed' and unsentimental.

The Romanovs is a high-quality book, very well researched, well written, often as gripping as a thriller. Two defects stop me from rating it higher than I did. The first is that, as the title implies, the book is about the Romanovs, not about Russian History, the latter is succinctly described but rarely analysed. An author as deep and erudite as Montefiore simply cannot overlook Russian History when writing about a dynasty that ruled the country forcefully for 300 years. The second is worse. Russia was an extremely violent country during the first centuries of Romanov rule. Far more than any Western monarchy of the same time. It kept its violent character for much longer than any other country, probably even in today. It was also where the ideas of fun surpassed in bad taste anything that went on in Europe around the same time and its well-known penchant for hard drinking and debauchery should be part of any serious book on the subject. Yet, Montefiore decidedly oversteps the marks. The fact that the best known Romanov killed his own son by flogging has to be mentioned; the lesser-known numberless cruelties committed by the Romanovs should be recorded. The hard to believe debauchery in their courts has to be described too. However, the Battle of Poltava and the extended executions of the Streltsy (musketeers) after their rebellion were far more important for Russian history and the Romanovs than the gore of torture and killing so well-detailed in the book. A better balance between the horror of widespread torture or debauchery and what was really historically important would make this an even much better book.

4.5 stars. Really enjoyed this. Listened to it on audio. The narrator was really good and I liked his voice. For the most part this was fantastic. I know very little about Russian tsars in general, and just a little bit more than that about the Romanovs, so this was a great reading experience. Going into this I was sure that I would love the Nicholas II and Alexandra time period/story the most. However I found they ended up being one of my least favorite sections. And I think a part of that is because of all the Romanovs Nicholas II and Alexandra and of course the whole Anastasia maybe making it out alive during the mass murder of her family, made it more intriguing and interesting. However, while their story was still interesting, the other tsars and empresses were far more. There were a few minor things that are more just my issues than anything with the book. But I was so confused some of the time when certain tsars were mentioned and talked about, especially during the Alexander II and Alexander III sections, since there were so many Alex's/Nik's/Maria/Marie's and various variations of all of those during that time that I had to keep going back to the "cast" page that was before each new tsar, I was so thankful these were included. While I adore history that is an aspect that makes it difficult to follow sometimes, when so many people share the same or similar names. Plus all the nicknames many of them had just made it more difficult. One thing that I did like but also made the listening experience a little confusing, was the narrator read the footnotes. I was happy that he did because they were interesting bits but sometimes it was jarring to go from the current narrative to a mention of what happened to a certain person years later or any number of things. Overall this was wonderful. I'm really glad I listened to this on audio.

If the Romanovs did anything good for Russia and its people, Montefiore finds very little of it. They were brutal mass-murderers and imperialists who believed peasants were their rightful property and Jews and Poles were vermin. Czar Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs, ordered thousands of his subjects massacred, and then complained that just ruined the day for himself and his family. Montefiore writes: > ... this is a world where obscure strangers suddenly claim to be dead monarchs reborn, brides are poisoned, fathers torture their sons to death, sons kill fathers, wives murder husbands, a holy man, poisoned and shot, arises, apparently, from the dead, barbers and peasants ascend to supremacy, giants and freaks are collected, dwarfs are tossed, beheaded heads kissed, tongues torn out, flesh knouted off bodies, rectums impaled, children slaughtered; here are fashion-mad nymphomaniacal empresses, lesbian ménages à trois, and an emperor who wrote the most erotic correspondence ever written by a head of state. Yet this is also the empire built by flinty conquistadors and brilliant statesmen that conquered Siberia and Ukraine, took Berlin and Paris, and produced Pushkin, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky; a civilization of towering culture and exquisite beauty. Montefiore finds two great emperors -- Peter the Great and Catherine the Great -- but even they spent their time building empires and monuments to themselves, rather than making the people better. Peter the Great was a scientist, engineer, soldier and general; he enjoyed traveling to Europe and enlisting as a craftsman to learn to make things by hand and he applied those skills to his military adventures. He ordered an ex-lover executed for infanticide – murdering her own babies. > On 14 March 1719, Mary appeared gorgeous on the scaffold in a white silk dress with black ribbons, but she expected a pardon, particularly when Peter mounted the gibbet. He kissed her but then said quietly: “I can’t violate the law to save your life. Endure your punishment courageously and address your prayers to God with a heart full of faith.” She fainted, and he nodded at the executioner, who brought down his sword. Peter lifted up the beautiful head and began to lecture the crowd on anatomy, pointing out the sliced vertebrae, open windpipe and dripping arteries, before kissing the bloody lips and dropping the head. He kept the head on display afterward. I found myself despising the Romanovs so much that I eagerly looked forward to the ending, where the entire family would be slaughtered in a basement by the Communists. The last Czar, Nicholas the II, wasn't the worst of the bunch, but he was the most incompetent, and he was a narcissist too, convinced that the people would never rise up against him because he was their czar, chosen by God, and they loved him – even while the people were, in fact, rising up against him. But when the finale came, it was unsatisfying, because several of the victims were children, because the murder was particularly savage, and conducted without trial, and well after Nicholas had already abdicated the throne and shown no interest in taking it back. The czars were terrible rulers, but the Communists were worse. Montefiore notes that the spirit of the czars lives on today, "... the new autocracies in Russia and China have much in common with that of the tsars, run by tiny, opaque cliques, amassing vast wealth, while linked together through hierarchical client–patron relationships, all at the mercy of the whims of the ruler." The same could be said of the US now, for the last three years. Before reading "The Romanovs," I wondered how people as manifestly incompetent as Trump and his supporters could seize and hold power. What we see in the Romanovs is that some people are great at seizing power, but incompetent at everything else. And once they've seized power, other people will find it to their advantage to keep things as they are. Trump, like the Romanovs, will go down quickly when he goes -- it'll be days, not months or years. But I don't know whether Trump will go down in 2020, or whether he and his cronies have put in place an autocracy that will last a generation or more. As for the book itself: The author is clearly passionate and expert about his subject matter, but it's a confusing book, filled with lots of Russian names (duh) that are hard to keep track of. Montefiore gets lost in detail, particularly in telling about wars and battles and internal Kremlin conflicts. It's an excellent book, but I wish maybe there were less of it.

This is my second copy of this book, actually, I have it on Kindle, too. What a great perspective on the Romanovs. Includes great details and anecdotes about the family from way back, like the 1600s, and helps make sense why Russia today is the way it is. A great study for anyone with a love for Russian lit who wants to know what the greats didn’t tell in their novels.

Simon Sebag Montefiore is an extraordinary historian, an erudite in Russia, and an excellent writer; all that we knew. It is no surprise then that his book on the Romanovs is every bit as good as one would expect. The four centuries of the dynasty's span, a real life saga which easily matches, if not surpasses, the most ambitious works of fiction, are captivatingly narrated by an author at the peak of his craft. This is a fascinating book. If you are looking for a compelling read, with all the twist and turns of a passionately written grand novel, forget about scholarly history, this book is for you. Enjoy!

The book is not an easy read but once you get over your initial phobia of complicated and repetitive names and characters, it is a pleasure to read. I read the book because i liked Jerusalem by Montefiore and wanted to know more of this period of Russian history. Montefiore impresses you with his command over facts, events and characterisation. The only complaint I have is the print edition i had wasnot well bound for its size and there was less of critical commentary by the author. Recommended to all keen on history.

I wish I had read this book before visiting Russia. It sets out with great clarity the foibles and challenges of the Romanov rulers. The tales of murder and mayhem are extraordinary- a soap opera but real. The style is very entertaining and accessible- but with plenty of footnotes for those who want more in depth background. Particularly interesting are the tales of the powerful women who ruled Russia for so much of the period, and the last Empress whose weaknesses the author pins much of the blame for the dynasty’s downfall upon.

Excelente abordagem. Uma escrita exemplar.

If you are interested in the subject, you should buy this book since it is quite a complete Romanov's history