The Race to Save the Romanovs

May 7, 2018
In this devastating, complex, and fast-moving narrative, everything from monarchical rivalries to sickness and bad weather play into the brutal demise of the Russian imperial family in 1918. Historian Rappaport (Caught in the Revolution) begins this gripping story in 1894 with the marriage of Nicholas Romanov, heir to the Russian throne, and Hessian Princess Alix, who, like her grandmother Queen Victoria, carried the potentially lethal hemophilia gene. Kaiser Wilhelm facilitated the doomed match, but in a couple of decades Russia and Germany were at war, and revolutionary fervor was rising in Petrograd. Rappaport rehashes some history from her previous books and gives salient new details on British procrastination and backpedaling in offering asylum to the imperial family after Nicholas’s abdication in March 1917. She describes the confusion within the provisional government about what to do with the ex-czar and the misguided hope that Kaiser Wilhelm might make the family’s safe exit from Russia a condition of the armistice ending Russia’s involvement in WWI. Relying on fresh archival material, Rappaport dispels some mystery about secret Western rescue plans—that is to say, she clarifies that they were nonexistent. Regarding myriad Russian monarchist rescue plots, she admits that rumors and misinformation make unraveling the truth “an impossible task.” This is a well-researched account of a colorful, suspenseful, and tragic series of events.

June 1, 2018
Rappaport approaches the Romanov massacre from an entirely new angle, exploring the various failed plots and schemes to save the doomed royal family. In retrospect, it seems unthinkable that Tsar Nicholas and his family, intimately related to numerous royal houses, were not rescued by or offered asylum in other European nations, but, in unraveling both domestic and international schemes, Rappaport outlines the historical, political, and social realities that made their liberation unlikely. Mired in confusion, complicated by tangled political alliances and enmities, hampered by poor communication systems, and overshadowed by the grim realities of WWI and the Russian Revolution, none of these plans came to fruition. The tragic fate of the Romanovs continues to confound and fascinate, and Rappaport, author of The Last Days of the Romanovs (2009) and The Romanov Sisters (2014), continues to mine their story for nonfiction gold, as she attempts to get at the truth of what really happened in 1917-1918. Timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the grim executions, this gripping chronicle will find a ready and eager audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)