The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga

by Constantine V. Pleshakov, John Curtis Perry

Release Date: 05 February, 2001

Edition: Paperback

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Fascinating reading !

I am a relative newcomer concerning the history of the Romanov family, but this has changed now. This book is just incredibly fascinating, there are so many facts as well as samll anecdotes that it is just pure delight to read this well written and extremely well researched book. The book demonstrates the lavish lifestyle of the last Romanovs, describes all the relationships between the European royal families in the late 19th and early 20th century, and goes into every single detail of the relationships within the Romanov family. The second half of the book describes the hardships hte Romanovs had to endure under the Bolshevik regime and how all their lives changed so drastically after Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and the Bolsheviks came to power.

The only slightly negative thing which came to my mind while reading this book was the vast number of names in some parts of the book. It sometimes hapens that there are eight different names in one sentence, referring to three different generations from three different parts of the Romanov family.

But this still does not cloud the impression from reading this extremely informative book which is absolutely readable for non-historians who are just interested in this topic.

The Flight of Good Scholarship

This is one of the few negative reviews I've written and I'm sorry to say I think this book is sorely lacking in historical discipline and style! Well, not everyone is a William Manchester. Had I not been so fascinated with the Romanovs, I would never have finished this book. For one thing, it is very negative toward the Romanovs, in many ways slamming them in thinly veiled ways. For example, Nikolasha is called great "for a Romanov". Nicholas II's sisters Xenia and Olga are invidiously compared because Xenia chose to stay under the protection of the British monarchs while Olga went on to live a rather wretched life in Canada. The authors feel Olga was more honest. In fact, this book even goes out of the way to slam Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth II of England. Most people who read a book like this are supportive of Royals and I think would find the author's tone a bit difficult. I agree that the family tree at the front of the book is very helpful. I also found that it enabled me to get clear about the three branches of the family with claimants to the throne. The authors end by heaping praise on a very peripheral member of the Romanov family who rode daredevil motorcycle for a living. Especially for historians, these two men are quite shallow in their presentation of historical material about the war, the revolution and more. There is a lot of attention devoted to the murder of Rasputin and I did find this helpful. All I can say about this book in general, though, is, "I don't get it and you shouldn't either!" Sorry for such a negative review.