PDF ✓ BOOK Alexandra The Last Tsarina

DOC Alexandra The Last Tsarina

PDF ✓ BOOK Alexandra The Last Tsarina ↠ ❰Download❯ ➾ Alexandra The Last Tsarina Author Carolly Erickson – Johns-cycling-diary.co.uk A czarina Alexandra mulher de Nicolau II assombrosamente bonita e melancólica fiel seguidora de Rasputine executada juntamente com toda a sua família no seguimento da Revolução A czarina Alexandra mulher de Nicolau II assombrosamente bonita e melancólica fiel seguidora de Rasputine executada juntamente com toda a sua família no seguimento da Revolução de Outubro de 1917 mantém se uma personagem enigmática da história mundialNum tom co When it comes to Russian history my knowledge base is not so much spotty as it is basically nonexistent I read a biography of Catherine the Great last year which was the first non fiction Russian history book I had ever read Alexandra The Last Tsarina was the second and before that my only source for information about the Romanovs came from the Royal Diaries series the Anastasia one was really good though and one historic fiction book about them that I read in middle school Add to that a National Geographic article that I read back when the Romanov remains had been found and identified and there you have the entire breadth of my Romanov knowledge prior to reading this book So in that sense I appreciated this book because just about every piece of information presented was new to me and I was glad to finally learn something real about this doomed family As the title suggests Alexandra is the focus of the book it begins with her childhood when she lost her parents at a young age then we get a bit about her education and some of her family drama including her grandmother ueen Victoria and then her extended courtship with Nicholas and how she became the empress of Russia Throughout the book Erickson describes Nicholas's attempts to rule effectively Alexandra's increasing unpopularity with the Russian people the wars and growing discontent and Alexandra's attempts to control her husband's policies with the assistance of Rasputin of course It's all good information and the story was able to keep me interested throughout the last few chapters are especially engrossing just because of how goddamn sad they are You're reading about the imperial family being held under house arrest constantly being threatened by their own guards and thinking they'll be killed any second and then England is like Yeah you guys can totally have asylum here We're sending a ship next week and then the next second the English prime minister realizes that that's actually a really bad idea and that he won't send a ship to rescue the family but no one tells them that and then their guards are all We're going to Siberia now where you'll be safe and you're just staring at the pages thinking oh god oh god oh god because you know how this story ends So to the uniformed eye this seems like a really good solid biography of a much maligned womanHere's the problem Carolly Erikson is a terrible historian One of her sources used in this book is the memoirs of Martha Mouchanov a former lady in waiting of Alexandra She provides a lot of personal details about the empress's state of mind and the inner workings of the palace and it seems like a great primary source Unfortunately as other reviews have informed me not only are Mouchanov's memoirs completely fabricated but this was known before this book was written So Erikson took an unreliable source and presented it as reliable because it helped her case of presenting Alexandra as a sympathetic figure Similarly Erikson will freuently make a statement about Alexandra's thought process or emotions at a certain time with no actual evidence to back it up and you get the sense that she's just projecting her own emotions onto Alexandra There's no in depth examination of why Alexandra thought that she was the most ualified person to rule Russia Erikson merely tells us that Alexandra thought she could rule better than her husband and moves on There's really no critical analysis of anyone here Rasputin clearly the most enigmatic and fascinating figure in this whole fiasco is examined only at surface level Was he playing a long con on Alexandra trying to manipulate her into destroying the country? Why did he begin by refusing large gifts of money and titles and later get greedier and demanding? Did he really believe that he was a holy man and a healer or was he an imposter all along? And most importantly how was he able to miraculously heal Alexei when no one else could? I realize that these uestions haven't been given definite answers but a little acknowledgement of them would have been nice There's no definite closure to the story it ends with the Romanov's execution spoiler alert and then a stupid epilogue about Alexandra's body being properly interred in 1998 Between those two events there's nothing how the Romanov's bodies were disposed of and hidden how they were discovered who was identified and who's still missing and why not even any information about what happened to the rest of the extended family It felt unfinished and unsatisfying This book shouldn't have been nonfiction Erikson should have just admitted defeat and written a historic fiction novel about Alexandra because that's basically what she's done anyway even the writing feels like overwrought fiction like this passage The warm June sun continued to shine down over the domes and rooftops of Moscow but now it was a city in mourning and the crows bloated and sated floated like dark wraiths in the cloudless blue sky And this line which was so ridiculous that it's the only passage in the entire book that I made sure to mark so I could uote it later A new order was coming slowly and painfully to birth forced into the light by the harsh midwife of revolutionBy the way Harsh Midwife of Revolution is the name of my new metal band We're not very goodOne last thing and then I'll put this book out of its misery Erikson for some god unknown reason insists on calling Alexandra and Nicholas Alix and Nicky throughout the book Maybe this is acceptable among Romanov biographers but it felt jarringly personal to me imagine reading a Tudor biography that referred to Henry VIII as Harry Maybe this book would have succeeded as a historical novel but as straightforward history it's a disaster