Nicholas and Alexandra

Fülszöveg

Nicholas and Alexandra ^^^ HISTORY oíTers few eras richer in drama than the last years of Imperial Russia. Tsar Nicholas II, ruler of one sixth of the earth and more than 120 millión Russians, presided over a glittering world of huge palaces, lavish balls, and incomparable luxury. For Nicholas and his golden-haired wife, Alexandra -Queen Victoria's favorité granddaughter-the happiest moment of their reign was the long-awaited birth, on August 12, 1904, of a male heir-their only son, Alexis. Yet just six weeks later Fate crushed the Imperial parents with a ruthless blow. Seemingly without cause, Alexis began to hemorrhage from the navel. The diagnosis did not take long: from his great-grandmother Queen Victoria, the tiny Tsarevich had inherited a dread disease, hemophilia. In despair over her son's condition, Alexandra placed his fate, and the fate of her husband and his empire, in the hands of Rasputin, the bizarre Siberian mystagogue whose hypnotic blue eyes brought Alexis relief from pain. It was Rasputin who continually goaded Alexandra into resisting the clamor for reforms in Russia's government. In 1905 the Russian people had achieved a partial revolution; absolute power had been struck from the hands of the Tsar with the creation of an embryo parliament, the Duma. And as World War I developed, the nation demanded not revolution but a share of responsibility in winning the victory. But, swayed by Rasputin, Alexandra passionately objected to any further erosion of the Tsar's power. Nicholas, reacting as husband and father as well as Tsar, gave way to her. By denying every cry for responsible government, Nicholas made revolution and the eventual triumph of Lenin inevitable. Róbert K. Massie has read all the diaries, letters and memoirs left by those who played major roles in this stormy and tragic epoch, and has woven together the first detailed, intimate account of an Imperial family (continued on back flap) Vissza