Random Jottings

Four Sisters - Helen Rappaport (part 2)

And now we come to Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, the Four Sisters of the title. I have mentioned in my first post how they led a stifling existance due mainly to the isolation imposed upon them by their mother, which many saw as cruel. 'Poor things!  ..... what a way to bring up imperial children. They might well be in Peter-Paul (the fortress prison). It is all right for the little Anastasia and for Marie, but for Tatiana and especially for Olga, who is fifteen, it is ridiculous'.

Yet despite, this restricted life it seems that everyone who met them found them to be fine young women, who demonstrated affection and loyalty.   Alexis took centre stage once he was born and it seemed that the Four Sisters were doomed to linger in the shadows of the future Tsar but they never complained.  The relationships seemed to split naturally between the four, the elder two, Olga and Tatiana, becoming slightly  detached from 'the little pair'. Maria, in particular, felt unwanted by her older sisters while the younger sibling, Anastasia, seemed to be coping in her own way.

When Russia went to war in 1914 it was faced with a desperate shortage of nurses and the Tsarita and her two elder daughters undertook Red Cross training. Although Maria and Anastasia were too young to train, they were allowed to play an active role, becoming hospital visitors.   Alexandra seemed to be spurred into action as well and spent less time worrying about her own ill health during this time.   The sisters must have seen some pretty horrific injuries and sights during this period and yet it seems from reading this section of the book, that they were able to feel useful and enjoy a sense of freedom outside of the Romanov circle which had hitherto been denied them.   It did not seem to cross Alexandra's mind, however, that her daughters who she still referred to as 'my little girlies' were growing up and showing interest in the opposite sex.  Olga and Tatiana had their favourites amongst the wounded soldiers and they spent a great deal of time with them.

So sad to think that this was perhaps one of the most enjoyable periods in their short lives and that falling in love, flirting, enjoyment were all denied them. 

The more I read about the Four the more I began to love them.  Despite their upbringing and circumstances they were loving, loyal daughters and this was commented on by all who met them. Their last days together at Ekaterinburg are not marred by tantrums, tempers and hysteria but by calm acceptance, cheerfulness and stoicism which fills me with admiration.   I find it very hard to understand and to forgive George V for his lack of action or backbone regarding the Romanov family and their rescue from Russia. While it would have been fraught with danger and politically difficult, my feeling is that he should have put his foot down and thrown his best efforts into getting his cousin Nicky and the family to safety.   I cannot imagine his feelings when he heard of their murder but I understand that he felt guilt for the rest of his life.

The sadness of it all is that if the family had made it to England, they would have been so happy. Nicholas would have settled down to the life he was more suited to, that of a gentleman farmer, his wife would have been away from the land which seemed to have sucked the life out of her, and the children would have led happy healthy lives.  They may have married into the English aristrocracy and far away from the turmoil of Russia found contentment.   It is a tragedy that instead of this possible outcome they ended up herded into that awful little cellar in Ekaterinburg and being brutally shot and hacked to death.

I repeat what I have already stated. Helen Rappaport is a fine writer and ensures that you become totally involved with her subject and I think this is her best book yet.   The Four Sisters is beautifully produced and contains some fascinating and never before seen photographs. How lovely Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia look, how beautiful with their long hair and simple but elegant dresses, how sweet, how young and how impossibly sad was their end.

Thank you Helen for writing about them and for letting us get to know them better.

Four Sisters - Helen Rappaport (Part one)

In the early to mid sixties I worked at Highgate Library. I was a teenager at the time and have recently realised that during those years I read three books which started me off on a life time's reading.   One was Victoria RI by Elizabeth Longford, the second was A Man of Sorrow by Locke & Dixon, a biography of Patrick Bronte, and the third was Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert Massie. My fascination with these three areas of biography, literature and history have continued to the very moment I am writing this post.

If the Romanovs had escaped from Russia and not met their appalling end it is safe to say our interest in them would probably have waned. But they did not escape and their tragic death in the cellar at Ekateringburg is one of those moments in history where it is difficult to comprehend the terror and suffering of Nicholas, Alexandra and their children as they were shot and butchered to death.   It is because it is so dreadful that the myth of Anna Andersen and her claim to be Anastasia captured the imagination and was believed for so long, even when DNA has finally disproved her claim.   There are those who in 2014 still believe her story and this is because we want it to be true, we want to feel that one of those children escaped, we would rather not face up to the truth.

Helen Rappaport is a Russianist and her knowledge and love of this period of history is profound. Her book, Ekaterinburg, which I reviewed here, was a marvellous piece of writing which brought home the grim reality of the claustrophobic final days of the Romanov family.   Now she focuses on the four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia and brings them to life in a new way which, while making us love them, also makes us sorrow for them even more.

I have said many times on Random that, for me, history is about people, not about politics. Of course, this is fascinating too and a recent programme on the BBC about the Three Cousins, George (England), Willie (Germany) and Nicky (Russia) explained in detail which I found quite absorbing, how various treaties and entente cordiales and meetings shifted and changed the balance of power between these countries. However, the part of this programme I loved the most was the footage of the families 'off duty' and how emperors and kings and queens behaved.   The most heartbreaking piece was a film of the Four Sisters, dressed in sailor suits, dancing on the deck of the Imperial yacht with tiny brother Alexis. Those few seconds I found more powerfully moving than any details of the machinations in the Kremlin or Buckingham Palace..

I have read several of Helen Rappaport's books and have enjoyed them all immensely. The author has a way of engaging the reader's interest immediately, she writes in a clean, unfussy style which I appreciate very much as I dislike fuss and hyperbole.  She obviously loves who she writes about and invites you to get to know them and love them as much as she does.   I saw Helen speak at the inaugural Felixstowe Book Festival last year and had the pleasure of introducing her talk on the Last Days of the Romanovs. By the end many of the audience were in tears, including me.

She loves these four girls and oh how I yearned over them the more I read. Their lives were so circumscribed and claustrophobic.   They lived in this tight family circle which I would have found stifling and their lack of contact with the outside world and enjoyment of normal every day activities, shopping, meeting friends, going to the theatre, being allowed out to see the world outside their gilded palaces, is something that would have driven me stir crazy in a matter of weeks.   But for Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia this was all they knew. I am amazed at how loving and tolerant they were under such restrictions and how they managed to deal with their mother, Alexandra, I shall never know.   She seemed to spend most of her life either in bed or lying on her sofa, plagued with melancholy and ill health and was, in my opinion, a suffocating and possessive mother. Nicholas loved her deeply and my view is that it was he who curbed any rebellion that might have arisen by his own sheer lovability and understanding. Clear that he was an excellent father who adored his children. Without such a father their lives would have been worse than they were.

I know one should have sympathy with Alexandra but I do struggle to do so.   Deeply religious and, as I have already said, melancholy, mournful and wracked with shyness and an inabilty to deal with the life to which she was condemned by her marriage, she exerts total joylessness in all that she does.   OK I know that as she produced daughter after daughter and knew that her inability to produce a son was a pressure we cannot imagine today, but I still have problems with her.   Of course, then when she produces the long awaited heir and realises that she has passed on a cripplingly painful disease to her son, her sense of guilt and pain must have been extraordinary.   Enter Rasputin who I will not discuss here who seemed to be the only person who could cure her son and with her deeply religious nature she became totally dependent upon him.

Throughout all of this the Four Sisters try to continue with their lives. There is so much more I wish to say about these marvellous girls that I am going to write a second post all about them alone as I simply fell in love with them and want to show just why I feel this way. So when I have gathered my thoughts and sorted out the copious notes and scribbles on post-its which are all over my review copy, I will be back.

The Four Sisters by Helen Rappaport is due to be published on 27 March 2014. If you wish to give yourself a treat then I suggest you order it now.