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Post by Ginger on Jul 20, 2019 9:52:25 GMT -4
I think Czarina Alexandra was a miserable pill for most of her life. Nobody liked her from the get-go. She wouldn't marry Nicholas because she was a rigid religious zealot (Lutheran), then she married him and became a rigid zealot of a different variety (Orthodox) and then met Rasputin and changed flavors again (Khlyst).
You could try to trace it back to any number of events in her life (starting with her mother's death when she was a child) but I think she just kind of sucked.
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Post by Auroranorth on Jul 20, 2019 15:57:16 GMT -4
Alexandra was a very shy person, but also very sure that she was right about everything. Queen Victoria was heavily involved in raising her, and her influence was not a good one. Alexandra was bad at handling people, and made a lot of very stupid mistakes by not trying to adapt or understand the court she now lived in. It didn't help that her mother-in-law Czarina Maria Feodorovna was a very hard act to follow, being very well-liked and popular. Alexandra also got involved in politics a lot, and had a genius for making the worst possible choice. Also, Nicholas was a terrible czar. He didn't have the personality or the force needed to govern a country like Russia, and he listened to Alexandra when he shouldn't have.
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ladytrentham
Blueblood
Now tomorrow morning, I'll breakfast in bed, and then get straight up into the tweeds.
Posts: 1,882
Jul 18, 2008 18:30:09 GMT -4
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Post by ladytrentham on Jul 20, 2019 19:17:49 GMT -4
Here's the twisted way my mind works: whenever I see pictures of Czar Nicholas and George V together, I hear the old Patty Duke Show theme in my head.
Carry on.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 20, 2019 20:00:18 GMT -4
Alexandra also got involved in politics a lot, and had a genius for making the worst possible choice. Also, Nicholas was a terrible czar. Her husband had a talent for making idiotic political decisions on his own as well. That dumbass basically kicked the World War I dominoes over when he mobilized Russia against Germany. Alexandra realized how catastrophic that decision was as soon as she found out about it. I don't think she was all bad, and she was her best self when she was with her husband and children. |
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Post by Auroranorth on Jul 24, 2019 21:27:56 GMT -4
Alexandra also got involved in politics a lot, and had a genius for making the worst possible choice. Also, Nicholas was a terrible czar. Her husband had a talent for making idiotic political decisions on his own as well. That dumbass basically kicked the World War I dominoes over when he mobilized Russia against Germany. Alexandra realized how catastrophic that decision was as soon as she found out about it. I don't think she was all bad, and she was her best self when she was with her husband and children. She was a devoted parent to her son, but her daughters got the short end of the stick. She was a lot like Queen Alexandra of England in that regard and didn't want to acknowledge that her daughters were growing up. Also, she's the one who brought Rasputin into the family circle, and that was a disaster on so many levels. Nicholas was an utter failure as czar, I agree. He didn't have any judgement, and he tended to agree with the last speaker/loudest voice. Kaiser Wilhelm manipulated him into war, but I don't think it was very hard to do. |
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Post by Mouse on Jul 25, 2019 9:07:53 GMT -4
I'm curious about Tsarina Alexandra's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth. Are there any good books about her? Any info?
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ladytrentham
Blueblood
Now tomorrow morning, I'll breakfast in bed, and then get straight up into the tweeds.
Posts: 1,882
Jul 18, 2008 18:30:09 GMT -4
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Post by ladytrentham on Jul 25, 2019 9:25:56 GMT -4
Along that line, what are the best biographies for Alexandra?
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Post by Auroranorth on Jul 25, 2019 21:51:08 GMT -4
Most of the books about Elizabeth are pretty hagiographic. I did think that Hugo Millar's Elizabeth, Grand Duchess of Russia wasn't terrible. If you want the dirt, try Grand Duchess Marie's Education of a Princess. Elizabeth and Sergei raised her and her brother Dimitri (he was later involved in Rasputin's death.) Marie had a lot to say about Elizabeth and it wasn't nice.
The Massie book Nicholas and Alexandra is very good IMO. Carolly Erickson's Alexandra: The Last Tsarina was also interesting. My Empress: Twenty-Three Years of Intimate Life with the Empress of All the Russias from Her Marriage to the Day of Her Exile by Marfa Mouchanow is seriously debated- it was pretty clearly a pen name, as the person has never been found, but the book has some very interesting things to say about Elizabeth, and they're not at all nice. The author did seem genuinely fond of Alexandra.
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Post by Ginger on Jul 25, 2019 22:00:28 GMT -4
The Massie book Nicholas and Alexandra is very good IMO. I can't remember the names of a lot of the Romanov books I've read. They all kind of blend together. But this one remains the definitive biography. A+. Probably worth reading this one two or three times rather than the other biographies that largely draw from it anyway. I think the only other book I really got a different perspective from reading was the collected love letters of Nicholas and Alexandra. The shmoopy shmoopy was a little tedious though. |
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ladytrentham
Blueblood
Now tomorrow morning, I'll breakfast in bed, and then get straight up into the tweeds.
Posts: 1,882
Jul 18, 2008 18:30:09 GMT -4
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Post by ladytrentham on Jul 26, 2019 9:32:59 GMT -4
Thanks!
::runs off to Amazon::
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