Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Our July nonfiction read is again about Russia and its people, this time specifically the last Romanovs to rule Russia. Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie focuses on Nicholas II of Russia and his wife Alexandra, the last czar and czarina. Their lives and rule were quite colorful. The end of their rule left the world with striking stories surrounding Rasputin and with legends of certain royal family members surviving, most notably Anastasia Romanov. I hope any history enthusiasts enjoy learning more about the Romanovs and Russia from this book.

Again, please remember to keep current politics out of the discussion. The history should provide plenty to talk about.

From GR: The story of the love that ended an empire.

In this commanding book, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Robert K. Massie sweeps readers back to the extraordinary world of Imperial Russia to tell the story of the Romanovs’ lives: Nicholas’s political naïveté, Alexandra’s obsession with the corrupt mystic Rasputin, and little Alexis’s brave struggle with hemophilia. Against a lavish backdrop of luxury and intrigue, Massie unfolds a powerful drama of passion and history—the story of a doomed empire and the death-marked royals who watched it crumble.

There is a film called Nicholas and Alexandra from the 1970's that might have been based on the book. I saw it way back then and remember it as being very dramatic and probably a very expensive production as well. Rasputin is the most memorable character from the movie!

Rosemarie, I love the animated Anastasia movie that came out in the late 90s, and Rasputin terrified me as a child. Definitely memmoriable! The Romanov family has fascinated me since that movie, though.

Another great non-fiction choice for the group. I'm afraid I've decided to pause my reading of History of the Russian Revolution in order to read Nicholas and Alexandra; my excuse is that this book should give me a lot of background to the revolution. (And I'm intrigued by the quote from Kerensky just before the book's introduction - "Without Rasputin, there could have been no Lenin".)