Comment

Dec 05, 2009GailRoger rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
A very readable piecing together of the last few weeks in the lives of Tsar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, their five children, and the unfortunate faithful retainers who shared their fate. Each chapter moves the narrative along a few days, or a day (towards the end), then focuses on a protagonist in order to give the background of the event leading up to the massacre. As we know what happened, the feeling of tension and inevitable doom builds until we reach the very graphic chapter that describes, in horrific detail, what happened to the Romanovs and their servants. To be frank, I didn't read that chapter all that closely. Ms Rappaport has researched meticulously and set out her arguments and narratives clearly. She succeeds in finding a balance between the Romanovs-as-saints and Romanovs-as-oppressors camps, and even manages to shed light on the motivations of their executioners. I was left with a feeling of sadness, not so much for the Romanovs and their company who were, after all only eleven out of millions who have suffered despair and death in Russia over the past century, but that such suffering is not likely to be over any time soon.