Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #652350 in Books
• Published on: 1983-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 864 pages

Synopsis
Traces the history of the Romanov dynasty in Russia from the 1613 accession t the throne of Michael Feodorovich Romanov to the deaths of the last Romanovs during the Russian Revolution.

Customer Reviews

Brian Wells, Esquire, reviews "The Romanovs"
The entire Eastern section of Europe, extending from its natural geographical eastern boundry-- the Ural mountains--to the next geographical boundry to the west--the Carpathian Mountains in what is now eastern Slavic Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) and Romania, is one flat space without natural barriers against invasion. As a result, all through history, this land of many different languages and cultures was overrun by invaders--the Vikings, the Swedes, the German/Teutonic Knights and the Monguls.

Early on, in their history, the inhabitants of this flat plain learned that a strong cntral authority was their only defense against foregn invasion and plunder. The establishment of Tsar of all the Russias was, therefore, an inevitable result of the geography of the location of the Russian people. If the diverse peoples of the Russian plain were to survive at all, they needed a strong autocratic authority to hold them together against the storms of military invasion. Consequently, in a very real way, the emmense authority that developed around the position of Tsar grew up out of the soil of the Russian plain.

If viewed in this light, many puzzling elements of Russian life can be better understood. The reason for their xenophobic reactions to outsiders and their servile attitude toward authority can all be drawn into sharper focus. No longer need we be reduced into racial stereotyping the Russian people as irresponsible children unready to accept the resposibilties of democratic government or as superstitious paranoids, frightened of any change. Their reactions to the world and acceptance of autocratic authority is the merely natural reaction of any people or culture who may have been similarly situated on a flat indefensible plain any where in the world.

Bruce Lincoln writes cogently about the sweeping history of the entire Romanov Dynasty. To be sure the autocratic rule of the Tsar did not begin with the crowning of Michael Romanov in 1613. The emergence and growth of the Principality of Moscow dating from 1300 had been accompanied by extremely autocratic rule. Indeed Ivan IV (called the Terrible) was the first prince of Moscow to take on the title of "Tsar of all the Russias" in 1547. However, when Ivan IV died without heirs in 1584, Russia entered into a 29 year peiod of time called "Time of Troubles" during which many boyer families competed for power. What resulted was a power vaccuum which allowed chaos, peasant revolts and suffering to reign at home and which invited foreign invasion from abroad. Only in 1613 did the boyers agree to settle on a single person for Tsar and elected Michael Romanov to that position.

From that point on the Russia began a rise to the position of world power that lasted until the time of Napoleon. Bruce Lincoln weaves an interesting tale as he follows the coarse of the Romanov Dynasty through the glory years of the Russian nation through the reigns of Michael, (reigned 1613-1645), his son, Alexis, (reigned 1645-1676) and grandson Peter the Great (reigned 1682- 1725)and on to the reigns of Peter's Tsarina Catherine I, (reigned 1725-1727), Peter and Catherine's daughter-in-law, Anne (reigned 1730-1740) and daughter Elizabeth (reigned 1741-1762). On to the reigns of Catherine the Great, (1762-1796), her grandsons, Alexander I, (1801-1825) and Nicholas I, (1825-1855).

With Nicholas I, Imperial Russia reached its apogee. The Decemberist Movement of 1825, the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the assassination of Nicholas I's son, Alexander II in 1881, all signalled the decline of the Russian Empire. The position of Tsar had lost its dynamism from Nicholas I on the Tsars were on the defensive, desperately attempting retain power rather than extend imperial influence. From the time of Nicholas I until the Revolution of 1917, the Tsars became more and more alienated from the real world and were thus gradually weakened until they were ripe to be overthrown. The bloodless Revolution of 1917 occurred as easily as a person kicking in a rotten door which fell off its hinges at the slightest impact.

The sweep of this book is grand, yet Bruce Lincoln's style of writing the holds the reader interest as if it were a novel.

"Sweeping in scale and minute in detail no book is better."
W. Bruce Lincoln does the best job I've seen so far of covering the ENTIRE Romanov history and that of her mother Russia. From rise to fall no writer could have imagined a greater plot. It was once said "to understand the present you must look to the past". To understand modern day Russia I suggest you look to this book.

One of the finest histories of Russia and her tsars.
I read this marvelous history several years ago, but it has stayed with me. Mr. Lincoln was able to weave the grand picture of Russia over this 300 year span. He was able to achieve this while making these historic figures both grand and human. I found this work so fascinating I have read most of the rest of Mr. Lincoln's literary endeavors and I have found them all wonderful.