Skip to main content

Review: "Education of a Princess" by Grand Duchess Marie of Russia

From Goodreads:  To clarify the confusing Romanov family: this Marie was the granddaughter of Czar Alexander II, the daughter of Grand Duke Paul, and the cousin of Tsar Nicholas. Her brother, Prince Dmitri, was one of the plotters against Rasputin. He was exiled for that, to the Persian frontier, which saved his life when the roundup of the Imperial family began. These are the memoirs of her childhood, a glittering version of solitary confinement, and young adult life. Her father was banished for marrying without the Czar's permission, which left Marie and her brother to be brought up by her uncle, the military governor of Moscow. After her uncle's assassination in 1905, her aunt arranged a marriage with a Swedish prince whom Marie saw a few times before the wedding. The marriage was disastrous, and a divorce was arranged, quickly and quietly. Marie's young son stayed in Sweden. Charity was an acceptable occupation for the women of the aristocracy, but Marie became a qualified nurse and spent much of the early part of WWI in field hospitals. The last part of the book contains her account of the final tense days of the Romanovs, her second marriage, and her escape through the Ukraine.
My Thoughts:  This book has been on my shelf FOREVER.  I bought it for a quarter at a library sale when I still lived in California (5+ years ago) and finally got around to reading it.  As far as memoirs go, this was a pretty sad one.  Marie didn't have an easy life; her mother died when she was young and her father was banished from Russia and she was raised by relatives in a strict, regimented environment.  The one person she was really close to was her brother and it was devastating to her to be separated from him when she moved to Sweden and then when he was exiled to Persia for killing Rasputin.  It is interesting to see how she is very conscious of the fact that while she had tutors and schooling, she wasn't educated in such a way that she was prepared to enter the real world.  I also thought it was fascinating to see the Romanov dynasty and the Russian empire crumble from as told from the  point of view of a member of the Romanov family.  There were a few things that bothered me about this book though.  While Marie was married to the a Swedish prince, she had a son but she hardly mentions and after she divorces the prince, she doesn't mention him at all.  I don't know if this is because it was painful for her or because she didn't care but I kept wondering what was going on with her son and why she acted in such an ambivalent manner when it came to him.  I also was bothered by the fact that her memoirs ended so abruptly.  I would have liked to have to read more about what happened after she escaped and her relationships with her brother and Romanov relatives after the revolution.  Overall, a pretty interesting look at the Russian imperial as their world slowly imploded.  3 stars.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review and Giveaway: "Distant Signs" by Anne Richter

Synopsis: Distant Signs is an intimate portrait of two families spanning three generations amidst turbulent political change, behind and beyond the Berlin Wall. In 1960s East Germany, Margret, a professor’s daughter from the city, meets and marries Hans, from a small village in Thuringia. The couple struggle to contend with their different backgrounds, and the emotional scars they bear from childhood in the aftermath of war. As East German history gradually unravels, with collision of the personal and political, their two families’ hidden truths are quietly revealed. An exquisitely written novel with strongly etched characters that stay with you long after the book is finished and an authentic portrayal of family life behind the iron curtain based on personal experience of the author who is East German and was 16 years old at the fall of the Berlin Wall. Why do families repeat destructive patterns of behaviour across generations? Should the personal take precedence over...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mailbox Monday (49)

It's time for another Mailbox Monday post!  Once again I could not resist the cheap ebooks that Amazon and Barnes and Noble were promoting this week.  I really need to stop!  I already have more than I can read.  I also was able to spend a little time browsing at the library and I came home with a nice stack of books.  These days, I hardly ever get to spend time at the library by myself for more than a minute or two so it was wonderful to have time to just wander and see what I could find. Purchased (for kindle): The Color of Secrets by Lindsay Ashford The One I Was by Eliza Graham House of Bathory by Linda Lafferty   Purchased (for nook): One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiore  Becoming Queen Victoria by Kate Williams From the Library: The Messenger by Daniel Silva   The Ripper's Wife by Brandy Purdy Hotel Moscow by Talia Carner Brazen by Katherine Longshore What books did you get...
15 comments
Read more

Review and Giveaway: "This Son of York" by Anne Easter Smith

Synopsis: Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by This Son of York…” — William Shakespeare, Richard III Richard III was Anne’s muse for her first five books, but, finally, in This Son of York he becomes her protagonist. The story of this English king is one of history’s most compelling, made even more fascinating through the discovery in 2012 of his bones buried under a car park in Leicester. This new portrait of England’s most controversial king is meticulously researched and brings to vivid life the troubled, complex Richard of Gloucester, who ruled for two years over an England tired of war and civil strife. The loyal and dutiful youngest son of York, Richard lived most of his short life in the shadow of his brother, Edward IV, loyally supporting his sibling until the mantle of power was thrust unexpectedly on him. Some of his actions and motives were misunderstood by his enemies to have been a deliberate usurpation of the throne, but thr...
Post a Comment
Read more