Alix and Nicky: The Passion of the Last Tsar and Tsarina - Couverture rigide

Rounding, Virginia

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 031238100X ISBN 13 : 9780312381004

Editeur : St Martin's Press, 2012

Synopsis

Few characters in history are as fascinating or controversial as Nicholas and Alexandra. From their passionate love to their horrifying execution, they are alternately viewed as innocent victims of Bolshevik assassins or blamed for causing the Revolution themselves. Much has already been written about their lives. But acting as a curator of the many conflicting histories, acclaimed author Virginia Rounding offers a different kind of biography, with an intimate look that probes the souls of these unforgettable figures, and tells the story of their passion and its consequences for Russia. Through newly revealed letters and diaries, Rounding explores the Empress' ill health, examines the enigmatic triangular relationship between Nicky, Alix and her confidante Ania Vyrubova, and looks anew at the reasons behind their reliance on the infamous Rasputin. Her conclusions are surprising. With eloquence and compassion, Rounding makes these characters come alive, presenting them in all their complexity and ardour, guiding the reader into their vanished world.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

There are few characters in history about whom opinion has been more divided than the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his wife the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna. On one hand, they are venerated as saints, innocent victims of Bolshevik assassins, and on the other they are impugned as the unwitting harbingers of revolution and imperial collapse, blamed for all the ills that befell the Russian people in the 20th century. Theirs was also a tragic love story; for whatever else can be said of them, there can be no doubt that Alix and Nicky adored one another. Soon after their engagement, Alix wrote in her fiancé s diary: Ever true and ever loving, faithful, pure and strong as death words which met their fulfilment twenty-four years later in a blood-spattered cellar in Ekaterinburg. Through the letters and diaries written by the couple and by those around them, Virginia Rounding presents an intimate, penetrating, and fresh portrayal of these two complex figures and of their passion their love and their suffering. She explores the nature and possible causes of the Empress s ill health, and examines in depth the enigmatic triangular relationship between Nicky, Alix and their favourite, Ania Vyrubova, protégée of the infamous Rasputin, extracting the meaning from words left unsaid, from hints and innuendoes. The story of Alix and Nicky, of their four daughters known collectively as OTMA and of their haemophiliac little boy Alexei, is endlessly fascinating, and Rounding makes these characters come alive, presenting them in all their human dimensions and expertly leading the reader into their vanished world.

Revue de presse

"You would need a heart of stone not to be moved by reading the story of how the Romanovs met their deaths in 1917... a new and distinctive portrait of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, the Empress Alexandra... In this solidly researched book, Rounding has brought a fascinatingly fresh slant to familiar material... her central story of a couple too dotty about each other to live in the real world emerges in all its tragic strangeness... Particularly moving is her account of Alix and Nicky s final days in captivity... Rounding points out that the word passion means suffering as well as sexual excitement. It would be hard to think of any royal couple in history who embody this subtle double meaning more poignantly" --Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: St Martin's Press
• Date d'édition: 2012
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 031238100X
• ISBN 13: 9780312381004
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 496
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible