1913: A Year in the Life of the Romanov Sisters — February 15th-28th

 15th, Friday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Alexandra as Nicholas was with the Emir of Bukhara. Seamstresses came and the women tried on dresses, making Alexandra very tired. Olga rode in a sleigh with Princess Elizabeth Obolenskaya. Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went skiing by the White Tower with Nicholas. Maria had a music lesson. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas and Alexandra while Tatiana had tea upstairs. Grigory Rasputin visited and Tatiana and Alexei came downstairs to join him and the rest of the family in the Maple Room. Rasputin told Olga that she could "rule like the tsarinas did in the past." Tatiana had a French lesson, then a music lesson. Maria and Anastasia had a French lesson, then did homework. Maria and Anastasia had dinner upstairs. Olga and Tatiana had dinner with Nicholas and Alexandra. Nicholas read aloud in the evening. Anna Vyrubova visited. Olga and Tatiana went to bed at 10pm.

16th, Saturday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna. Olga rode in a sleigh with Elizabeth Obolenskaya. Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went for a walk with Nicholas and Olga Alexandrovna, then all above went sledding by the White Tower. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga Alexandrovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. At 6:30pm Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went with Nicholas, Olga Alexandrovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna to vsenoshnaya at the Feodorovsky Cathedral. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga Alexandrovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. All above watched The Election of Tsar Mikhail followed by some more lighthearted films. Tatiana went to bed at 11:45pm while Olga went to bed at 12:30am.

17th, Sunday:

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went with Elizaveta Feodorovna to obednya at the Feodorovsky Cathedral. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Prince Ioann Konstantinovich. They then went to the Alexander Palace chapel where an obednitza was performed with The Ikon of the Pochaevskaya Mother of God. At 2:07pm Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia went into St. Petersburg with Elizabeth Obolenskaya. They first visited Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, then Olga Alexandrovna. At 3:30pm M.L Tsigern-Shternberg, Anatoly Fedyushkin, and Olga's crush Alexander Shvedov arrived. They sat around for half an hour until 4pm when Alexander Leuchtenberg [?], Sasha, Kolya and Nadya Leuchtenberg, Zoya Steckel, Princess Irina Alexandrovna, Nikolai Rodionov, S.S Klyucharev, R. Shangin, and Nikolai Kulikovsky arrived. They had tea at two tables, Olga sat with Alexander Shvedov and was "very, very happy." They played games in the parlour and hide and seek in the downstairs drawing-room. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia left at 7pm, then had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Ioann Konstantinovich. At 9pm Olga and Tatiana went with Nicholas to the St. Petersburg city hall to watch a Red Cross performance of The Eternal Love. The play ended at exactly 12am. 

Anastasia taking a selfie in the girls' bathroom at the Alexander Palace, early 1913

18th, Monday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Alexandra and Elizaveta Feodorovna. They then skied down the hill by the White Tower with Nicholas. Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia* had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Maria had tea alone. Maria had a music lesson, then did homework. Olga and Tatiana had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, Elizaveta Feodorovna, and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich. Maria and Anastasia had dinner upstairs. 

19th, Tuesday:

Lessons. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Olga sat with Alexandra in the afternoon. At 4pm the family travelled to the Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg for obednitza—Grigory Rasputin was there. They then moved into the Winter Palace. Olga and Tatiana had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Maria and Anastasia had tea with Alexei. Olga and Tatiana had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Elizaveta Feodorovna. Maria and Anastasia had dinner with Alexei. Olga Alexandrovna visited and sat with Olga and Tatiana. They listened to music through the telephone [probably a performance at one of the theatres]. 

20th, Wednesday:

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia rode in a sleigh with Catherine Schneider down the Nevsky and Morskoy Streets, then the waterfront where they saw the Standart as well as Nikolai Sablin and Nikolai Rodionov. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, Elizaveta Feodorovna, and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. Maria stayed home in the afternoon. At about 3pm Olga and Tatiana went with Nicholas to a molebna at the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. They returned at 4pm. Maria Feodorovna visited Alexandra and Maria. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Olga Alexandrovna. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Alexandra and Elizaveta Feodorovna. 

21st, Thursday**:

Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia walked around the garden. At 12:15pm the family went in a procession to Kazan Cathedral for molebna. They returned at 1:30pm. Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Maria Feodorovna, and Elizaveta Feodorovna—Alexandra was resting. At 3:45pm Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia attended a baisemain reception with Alexandra [presumably also the other Romanov women]. They all wore court dresses, Olga and Tatiana's had trains for the first time. Tatiana was nervous and had a headache. It ended at 5:30pm. Maria and Anastasia had tea at the children's monastery [?]. Tatiana rested and had a temperature of 38.6°C so went to bed early. Olga had dinner with Nicholas and Elizaveta Feodorovna, then sat with Alexandra. 

22nd, Friday:

Tatiana had a temperature of 38.2°C so stayed in bed, but was visited by Olga Alexandrovna. At 11am Olga attended a reception with various members of the extended Romanov family. Maria and Anastasia walked around the garden. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Maria Feodorovna, Olga Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, and Duke Peter of Oldenburg. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went for a walk with Nicholas and Alexei. Tatiana briefly went downstairs to greet Alexandra. Olga had tea with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria Feodorovna. Maria [possibly also Anastasia?] had tea with Alexei, Prince Nikita Alexandrovich, Prince Dmitri Alexandrovich, Prince Rostislav Alexandrovich, and Prince Vasily Alexandrovich. Tatiana had tea in bed and had a temperature of 38.1°C. Olga spoke to Nikolai Sablin on the telephone. Maria took a bath with Alexandra in the swimming pool-tub. Maria had dinner with Nicholas [presumably so did Olga and Anastasia]. At 8:15pm Olga, Nicholas, and Alexandra went to the Mariinsky Theatre and watched the opera A Life For the Tsar. Tatiana came downstairs to see them off. Alexandra left after the first act as she felt unwell. They returned to the Winter Palace at 11:30pm.

23rd, Saturday:

Tatiana had a temperature of 38°C so stayed in bed, but was visited by Olga Alexandrovna, Anna Vyrubova, and Nicholas. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia walked around the garden with Nicholas. They then attended a baisemain reception for ladies-in-waiting with Maria Feodorovna. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas and Maria Feodorovna. Maria [possibly also Olga and Anastasia] went for a walk with Nicholas. Irina Alexandrovna, Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, and Prince Feodor Alexandrovich came by. Olga and Irina Alexandrovna had tea with Tatiana in her room. Maria and Anastasia had tea with Andrei Alexandrovich, Feodor Alexandrovich, and Alexei.*** Tatiana read in bed. Olga spoke to Nikolai Sablin on the telephone. Maria and Anastasia went to Catherine Schneider's rooms. Olga and Maria had dinner with Nicholas [Anastasia probably had dinner with Alexei]. Tatiana had dinner in bed. Maria and Anastasia took a bath in the swimming pool-tub. At 9:15pm Olga, Nicholas, and Alexandra went to the Assembly of the Nobility, after going up to say goodbye to Tatiana who was supposed to go. There were prayers, speeches, and bread and salt were served. Olga danced the polonaise with Count Emmanuel Emmanuelovich Sievers, a quadrille with Zinoviev, a mazurka with Oleg. K., and other dances with "lots of officers." Alexandra left halfway through. Olga and Nicholas left at 11:45pm. Tatiana was diagnosed with typhus. 

Ball at the Assembly of the Nobility Building in St Petersburg on 23 February 1913 by Dmitri Kardovsky c. 1915

24th, Sunday:

Tatiana had a temperature of 39.2°C and a headache. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas, then had breakfast with him. At 2pm Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went with Olga Alexandrovna to her house. M.L Tzigern-Shternberg, Skvortsov, and Alexander Shvedov went with them. Nikolai Sablin, S.S Klyucharev, G. of Leuchtenberg****, Sasha, Nadya, Kolya, Irina Alexandrovna, Zoya Steckel, Nikolai Zarnikau, R. Shangin, and Nikolai Kulikovsky arrived later. They played turkey, all-of-Petersburg, slap-on-hands, and rope. At tea Olga sat between Nikolai Sablin and Alexander Shvedov. Olga spoke to Alexandra on the telephone. The group then played hide and seek in the dark. They returned at 6pm. Maria and Anastasia had dinner together. Olga got changed and then went to Alexandra's rooms, together they went down to the malachite room. They had dinner with the rest of the family in the Georgievsky Hall. There was music and the dinner went on until 9pm. Alexandra lay on a sofa for much of the evening. Anna Vyrubova visited. Olga went to bed at 10:30pm. 

25th, Monday:

The family began fasting today. Olga spent the morning sitting by Alexandra's bed. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to church at 11:30am. They had breakfast with Nicholas, Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna, Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich, and Prince Konstantin Bagration of Mukhrani. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia walked with Nicholas on the roof and in the garden. Tatiana had a temperature of 39.4°C but her headache wasn't as bad. Maria Feodorovna and Xenia Alexandrovna came to visit her. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Alexandra and Anna Vyrubova. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, Anna Vyrubova, and Konstantin Bagration. Olga Alexandrovna visisted. Maria and Anastasia swam in the pool-tub while Olga Alexandrovna, Alexandra, Nicholas, and Olga watched. They then sat and did handiwork. Olga went to bed at about 11pm.

26th, Tuesday:

Tatiana was visited by Nicholas and had a temperature of 39.1°C. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas. The above then had breakfast with Paul Alexandrovich. At 2pm the family went to a panikhida for Alexander III at the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral. They returned to the Winter Palace with Maria Feodorovna, Olga Alexandrovna, Xenia Alexandrovna, and Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich. At 3pm they returned to Tsarskoe Selo and moved back to the Alexander Palace. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea with Nicholas and Alexandra. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to vsenoshnaya with Nicholas. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas and Alexandra. Nicholas read aloud in the evening.

27th, Wednesday:

Lessons. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas. Tatiana had a temperature of 39.7°C and was visited by Olga several times during the day. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Zhitkevich. From 2pm to 4:30pm Olga, Maria, and Anastasia began building an ice tower with Nicholas while Alexei watched from a carriage. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had tea and then dinner with Nicholas and Alexandra. Anna Vyrubova visited in the evening.

28th, Thursday:

Lessons. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to obednya with Nicholas. Tatiana had a temperature of 39.1°C. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had breakfast with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Count Grabbe. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia continued to build the ice tower with Nicholas. Tatiana was visited by Nicholas for a while before tea. Olga [possibly also Anastasia] had tea with Nicholas and Alexandra. Maria had tea alone, then a music lesson. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia went to vsenoshnaya with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Alexei. Olga, Maria, and Anastasia had dinner with Nicholas, Alexandra, and Count Grabbe. Tatiana had a bath. Olga went to bed after 10pm.

Maria, Anastasia, and Olga with officers at Olga Alexandrovna's house, early 1913

*It's difficult to say what Tatiana and Anastasia did for tea this day as Anastasia has no diary entries and isn't mentioned by anyone else, while Tatiana's entry for this day wasn't published.

**The Romanov Tercentenary celebrations began on this day, as it was the day of Tsar Mikhail's election in 1613.

***My best guess based on conflicting descriptions.

****I've previously listed G. of Leuchtenberg as George Maximilianovich as I couldn't find anyone else matching that description, though he died in 1912. A mystery man, I suppose. 

References:

Azar, H. (2015) Journal of a Russian Grand Duchess: Complete Annotated 1913 Diary of Olga Romanov, Eldest Daughter of the Last Tsar. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Azar, H. and Nicholson, A. (2017) Tatiana Romanov, Daughter of the Last Tsar: Diaries and Letters, 1913-1918. Yardley, P.A: Westholme Publishing.

Azar, H. and Madru, A. (2017) 1913 Diary of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna. Amazon Publishing.

Дневник Николая II 1913. (2007). Available at: http://www.rus-sky.com/history/library/diaris/1913.htm. (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

lastromanovs (2020). 683-1-116-4об. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/149552988@N02/49164795517/in/album-72157712049210873/ (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

Wikipedia (2020). File: Ball in St. Petersburg Assembly of the Noble 1913.jpg. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ball_in_St._Petersburg_Assembly_of_the_Noble_1913.jpg (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

lastromanovs (2020). Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/149552988@N02/49164065898/in/album-72157712049210873/ (Accessed: 21 March 2022)

The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne — a Very Negative Review

Imagine, if you will, the most average book ever written. A book attempting nothing that hasn't already been done to death, a book that challenges nobody, a book with no surprises save just how bad it is. That book is The House of Special Purpose.

I'll be separating my review into three sections:

Things I Didn't Like About the Book as a Book, Historical Inaccuracies, and Characterisation. Please do note the absence of a Things I Liked category. It wouldn't have been worth typing out the heading.

1. Things I Didn't Like About the Book as a Book

This book is, simply put, boring. Considering the source material, that fact might be an achievement in and of itself. 

The main problem is that a lot of things happen but the writing is such that you don't realise anything has happened until it's already over. For example, the inciting incident is our protagonist Georgy preventing the assassination of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. I don't remember much about this sequence beyond slight confusion as I struggled to parse what exactly Georgy was doing and how he possibly had the time and room to do it in. You may think that this was a deliberate effort to portray the panic and disorientation that such a situation would cause. I can assure you it was not. 

A consequence of this is that while hypothetically interesting events are left, right, and centre of the narrative, they remain only hypothetically so. This might not be such a problem in the hands of a more skilled writer, but Boyne is evidently not that writer. Plot-driven stories are perfectly valid and that seems to be what Boyne was going for here, but the trouble is that you need to be able to write a plot.

He also doesn't seem to know how to write characters...at all. You don't get attached to any of them because they are either so bland or so inconsistent that they don't feel anything like real people. What can I tell you about Georgy? Well, he's nice. Except for one scene wherein he is the most arbitrarily cruel character you have ever read about. He has old-fashioned values, which we are explicitly told is a trait of his before ever getting to see it in action. 

Another problem it had—though this is tangentially related to the main one—is that there are too many improbable situations waved away for the sake of the story. In historical fiction, such scenes are to be expected and even encouraged. But, as Boyne has discovered, there is such a thing as too much fiction. Why on earth would both Alexandra and Anastasia be walking (separately) unguarded and alone through Mogilev at night? How could Maria possibly orchestrate a full-on affair with a random guard who her parents barely know and do not trust? Most egregiously, in what universe would it be possible for Anastasia to sneak out of the Winter Palace and wander around St. Petersburg?

My next problems are, I suspect, the result of personal preference so read ahead with that caveat firmly in your mind. 

Boyne does the thing I despise where the author sprinkles in words from another language in order to make the book feel more authentic. The only thing this achieves is to draw the reader out of the book and make them wonder whether, as the rest of the book is not explicitly in Russian, we are to imagine that all of this is being conducted in English. 

Next, and this problem is three-pronged, names. Boyne is somewhat inconsistent in how he chooses to spell names. He anglicises Nikolai to Nicholas, Nikolaevna to Nicolaevna, and Maria to Marie. This is all well and good, but it does beg the question of why he chooses to leave other names such as Daniil or even Georgy in their transliterated forms when perfect English equivalents exist.

I also suspect that Boyne doesn't quite grasp Russian names. The protagonist's sisters are only ever referred to by the diminutives of their given names: Asya, Liska, and Talya. At first, I thought this was to show how close he was to them, but after reading the rest of this book I have the sneaking suspicion that Boyne thinks these are the given names. 

One character has the patronymic "Vladyavich" which would imply that his father's given name was Vladya; a diminutive of Vladislav. Very bizarre, but not necessarily out of the realms of possibility. I think, however, that Boyne means to imply that this character's father was Vladislav and not Vladya because of the even more bizarre names possessed by two other characters: Kolek Boryavich and Sergei Stasyovich (who is incidentally Maria's guard love). Not only is Kolek a very strange name in and of itself, but his patronymic is not real. We are told explicitly that Kolek's father is called Borys and so his patronymic should be Borisovich (or Borysovich as Boyne insists on spelling it). Stasyovich, if we follow the line of logic set out by these, is in Boyne-world supposed to come from Stanislav but in reality would imply Stas', a diminutive of Stanislav. I'm beginning to think that Boyne is allergic to research.

Another peculiar example is the nickname "Pasha" belonging to our protagonist, whose given name you might remember is Georgy. Pasha is a common diminutive of Pavel and so an odd thing to call a Georgy. The justification is that Pasha means "small." You may note that Pasha means small because Pavel means small and not because it's simply a word independent of anything. This leads me onto the third prong.

Georgy, a peasant boy from nowhere-ville with zero education, seems to know the meaning of every name off the top of his head. Zoya means life, Pasha means small, Arina means peace, Georgy means farmer—all this and more he dutifully rattles off over 493 pages. Does any of it have any bearing on the plot? Not really, no. Boyne would just like us to know that he did some googling before sitting down to write. In fact, the very last words of the book are explaining the meaning of Zoya which in some ways felt quite fitting—it at least let me get one last eye roll in.

2. Historical Inaccuracies

Oh, where to start?

The first problem makes itself apparent quite literally on page 1 when Georgy informs us that he was born in Kashin, a town in the Grand Duchy of Muscovy. What is the Grand Duchy of Muscovy? Well, you'd be forgiven for asking given that it hasn't existed since 1547. And this is not Georgy showing off his splendid education yet again, as he later tells someone that he's from the Grand Duchy of Muscovy and that person responds as though this is a perfectly normal thing to say and not the equivalent of me describing myself as hailing from Mercia. What Boyne meant is the Moscow Governate, but I suspect he was too tired to find out after looking up all those names.

We continue with the theme of location for my next point (which is really two points, but it's probably best to put them together). This book begins in 1915, some time into the War and a year that the Imperial family spent almost entirely at the Alexander Palace. Reading this book, however, you wouldn't know it. Much of it takes place in the Winter Palace—a residence that Nicholas II and his family barely used at the best of times, nevermind during the War. Throughout 1915 and 1916, they are described to be taking their usual holidays to Livadia and aboard the Standart "as if the world was as it had ever been." The Standart was, in fact, placed in dry dock when the War broke out and wasn't removed until long after the 1917 revolution. Similarly, the last time Nicholas II and his family stayed at Livadia Palace was before the War in 1914. I can understand that Boyne wanted to give a little variety to his settings, but to do so and then put it forward as evidence for the Romanovs' nonchalance towards their country's suffering is perhaps a little deceitful.

My next few points are comparatively minor, but worth mentioning all the same. Firstly, the Grand Duchesses are described as having all their lessons as a group of four. In reality, they had most lessons individually with occasional lessons being taken in their pairs (Olga & Tatiana and Maria & Anastasia). The only teacher ever mentioned in the book is Monsieur Gilliard (known as Zhilik within the family) who taught all the children French and oversaw Tsarevich Alexei's entire education. It's strongly implied that he was the children's only teacher which would be rather a lot for even a man of Gilliard's capabilities.

Now we come to Eira. Eira was a yappy terrier who belonged to the Empress and who, as Boyne correctly characterises her, was little liked by others. Unfortunately, I must now revoke this singular historical accuracy point because she died in 1906 and was therefore not present at the Ipatiev House, as Boyne claims.

On the subject of the Ipatiev House, Boyne has much insight to offer. Apparently, it had an "utter lack of security" with both the front door and the gate being kept open at all times. Georgy, and probably the reader, wonders why the family "didn't simply come downstairs and flee." The windows were seemingly not whitewashed in July as Georgy sees the Empress through one of them, and then Maria is allowed to simply waltz out onto the street in search of Eira who has run out of the aforementioned open front door. Georgy even asks Maria how she was allowed out and she informs him that "They give us as much freedom as we want." Need I even comment?

Later that same day, Alexei comes wandering out to meet Georgy at the front gate and proclaims that he "has been quite well." In reality, Alexei suffered a haemophilic attack several months earlier at Tobolsk and was unable to walk for the rest of his life.

There is a claim made by Anastasia that "My parents went to a different party every night of the week" before the War broke out. This is obviously an exaggeration in order to get across the point she's making, but even a scaled-back version of this claim would not be true. Alexandra hated parties because they gave her headaches and she avoided them as much as possible—part of the reason the aristocracy hated her so much was because throwing parties was considered one of the Empress' duties and Alexandra didn't fulfil it.

3.  Characterisation

Let's do this one from best to worst. That way, I can pretend that this review has any sense of structure and coherence.

I've already spoken a little about Georgy, but let's dig deeper. As I mentioned before, he's a generally mild character with seemingly no real opinions about or attachments to anything beyond his love for Anastasia and by extension her family. The biggest problem I had with him (and, for that matter, the plot) is that I cannot imagine Anastasia falling for such a nothing person. This man has the personality of microwave porridge. And yet, somehow, he is also simultaneously The Worst.

At one point, his sister Asya turns up in St. Petersburg. She explains that she's hoping he'll be able to get her a job at the palace, and that she's been living in a fairly bad situation in the city but will return home should he be unable to find her anything. Asya's entire characterisation up until this point has been how much she wants to live in St. Petersburg and, if she can't be a part of it, to at least be adjacent to high society. He has been hearing all his life about how much she wants this. So Georgy agrees to ask around, and they part ways. He speaks to the head of staff at the Winter Palace and she does have an opening for a maid, so he puts his sister forward. But when he meets up with Asya, he decides to tell her that there was nothing available which forces her to go back to Kashin. Why does he do this? Georgy doesn't really have an explanation. The real reason is, of course, so that Boyne can wave away the question of why none of Georgy's siblings are ever seen again after the first third of the book. But it means that Boyne has now written a character who does awful things like that for no real reason and never follows up on this trait. You might say that real people do mean things for no reason all the time in real life, and you'd be right. But this is fiction—and fiction has to make sense.

With one (almost) irrelevant exception, the rest of the main cast is comprised of the Romanov family who are accurate to life with wildly varying degrees of success.

I think the most well done was Alexei. In fact, beyond a few grievances with how and when he gets injured, I'd say that Alexei is pretty much perfect. I don't really know how Boyne managed to achieve this; the entire time I was reading I kept waiting for him to write something horribly un-Alexei-like but I don't think he ever did. There, he can have back that point I took away for crimes against Eira.

I'm going to award second best to Olga, but don't be fooled! This does not mean that Olga was done well—I would go so far as to say that she wasn't done at all. She gets two lines, and neither betray much about what she's like. The first is something about Georgy looking tired, while the second is complaining about having to become a nurse. Olga appears a few times in the background of other scenes but doesn't really do anything and so unfortunately that's all I can comment on.

Third place goes to the Emperor himself, Nicholas II. I believe that Boyne has generally portrayed him well, though there are a few...hitches, I suppose you could say. First, book Nicholas seems quite happy to divulge his innermost thoughts to some eighteen-year-old in his guard. Georgy doesn't really do anything to make himself a particular friend to Nicholas and never says much of consequence during these little monologues—that would require Georgy to have opinions, and we don't want that. Nicholas is also very exasperated by his wife, Alexandra, and Boyne claims that "their relationship had begun to disintegrate." Anyone who has read their wartime letters can tell you this is exactly the opposite of the truth; I had to stop at one point because they're almost painfully sentimental. Most, if not all, interactions they have throughout the book involve some sort of argument and it's made obvious that Nicholas is quite tired of her.

Alexandra herself suffers from the usual charges set against her by historians who like to build easy, one-dimensional caricatures out of those they study. Boyne's Alexandra is hysterical, frigid, and unkind. When she isn't shouting at staff she's ignoring them, when she isn't lecturing her children she's tricking them into caring for her. Her family all dislike her and seem to try to avoid her as much as possible. If you know me, you know how strongly I feel about this abhorrent treatment that Alexandra has been given over the years. It's reductive, misogynistic, and frankly betrays a lack of research. If she was truly this awful, selfish, cold-hearted person then why would she have so many friends? Why would her husband speak of her with nothing but adoration? Why would her children spend so much of their time in her company? Reading her scenes in this book I was certainly disappointed, but I can't say that I was surprised.

Now, Boyne's portrayals of Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia are very much a race to the bottom.

Anastasia is our love interest for this book and consequently a nothing character. Not quite so bad as Georgy, but certainly far from good. I can see almost nothing of the real vivacious, high-spirited Anastasia in this book Anastasia. Oh and, surprise, she somehow manages to survive her family's murder by simply walking out of those aforementioned open front gates. Truly, an original and well-written twist.

Maria starts out by being quite mean and stuck up, but halfway through does some sort of spontaneous 180 when I assume Boyne deigned to read her Wikipedia article. The only thing she does of consequence is have that affair with the splendidly named Sergei Stasyovich, because in Boyne-world being a romantic translates to going against your entire belief system to have a little fun. Poor Maria.

Without a doubt, the worst of all was Tatiana. I think it's actually impossible that Boyne did even the tiniest amount of research into her, and if he did then he actively decided to go against everything he read. 

Our introduction to book Tatiana is her teasing Anastasia for defending Georgy against one of Maria's mean comments about him. What does Boyne write? "'Our sister is in love,' cried Tatiana." It was at this point I knew all was lost. In real life, Tatiana was as shy as her mother and wouldn't have dared to say something like that in front of a stranger the very first time they met—in the middle of a lesson, no less! She then goes on to discuss Georgy as though he isn't there, going so far as to call him a "simpleton."

Halfway through the book, during a supposed mid-war stay at Livadia Palace, Alexandra suggests that she along with Olga and Tatiana train to be nurses. Real Tatiana was dutiful and eager to help in any way she could during the War, and regardless adored her mother so that she would've done anything she asked without complaint. So what does Boyne write? "I turned to look at the Empress's two eldest daughters, who had both grown a little pale at the mention of their names [...] 'Father?' began Tatiana, but he was already nodding his head..."

Boyne then appears to mix up Olga and Tatiana, describing Tatiana thus: "She looked pale and had lost weight since her nursing duties had begun." Olga, in fact, suffered from what might be called depression while she worked as a nurse and later suffered a nervous breakdown. Tatiana thrived. She did not, for example, say things like "There are mornings when I wake up and wish that I might fall ill myself in order not to have to be there." She also talks about how little the doctors seem to care about rank—something that I find indescribably funny given that one of the most well-known anecdotes about her (one that was included in her 2013 Wikipedia article, I checked) concerns how she complained about not being allowed to boil silk and breathe carbolic acid on account of her age and rank. 

I shall leave you with a quote that Boyne attributes to Tatiana while discussing her nursing, but which I think would be far more suited to describing how he writes historical fiction:

"Oh but I'm terrible at it!"