Volume 30, Number 10 · June 16, 1983
On the Eve
By Aileen Kelly
In War's Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War
by W. Bruce Lincoln
Dial, 557 pp., $19.95
The Romanov Family Album
introduction by Robert K. Massie, picture research by Marilyn Pfeifer Swezey, assembled by Anna Vyrubova
Vendome Press, 127 pp., $25.00
Recent collections of photographs of life in Russia during the reign of the last czar convey an image of two separate and self-contained worlds: the world of lawyers and professors, ballerinas, officers in their clubs, prim middle-class families; and the world of shaggy peasants standing in front of their windowless huts, of 'holy men' with mesmerizing stares, of Kazakh or Siberian tribesmen. Robert Massie's edition of Romanov family photographs (taken by the last empress's confidante, Anna Vyrubova) has much slighter historical interest than the earlier collections,[1] but it does remind us of the curious mixture of East and West in the cultural makeup and traditions of Russia's ruling dynasty. The last czar, heir to a Byzantine tradition of autocratic power, was the devoted and obedient husband of one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters, and never happier than when indulging in the innocent pleasures of an affluent bourgeois paterfamilias, a role that he infinitely preferred to that of Autocrat of All the Russias; yet when events finally forced a choice between the traditions of East and West, he showed himself a true despot in the spirit of his ancestors. By his obdurate opposition to constitutional rule, he helped to push his country toward a new-style oriental despotism.
Review, 3675 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |