Product Description

An important new archive of letters, postcards, photographs, and other unpublished Romanov documents were used by the author to be able to write the first biography of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia. Sister of Nicholas II, she was born in 1875 and brought up in the wealth and splendour of the Russian royal family. Her father was Alexander II, and she married her cousin Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovich in 1894. They had seven children, among them her only daughter, Irina. Irina married Prince Felix Youssupov, who was one of the ringleaders in the successful attempt to murder Rasputin. During the Revolution, Xenia and her family fled from Russia in fear. Her husband went to France and died there in 1933, while she and her children made a life in England, where she died in 1960. Her life contains the elements of the Romanov dynasty: wealth, tragedy and exile.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #380065 in Books
• Published on: 2004-02-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Just a nice lady
"Once a Grand Duchess" the title is taken from the Grand Duke Alexander's (Xenia' s husband) memoirs "Once a Grand Duke". For me, this title kind of boils it down what Xenia was all about: just following, passive, with no particular interest or talents. She was properly just a very nice, lovable lady, a product of her up-bringing and good mother. But that's about it. Therefore, I understand the disappointment of one reviewer who found the book dull. However, I did not find the book dull but the subject.
Nevertheless I liked the book as it fills in a gap in one' s biography collection on the last Czar' s family. While tons of books have been written on Czar Nicolas and quite a considerable amount on his brother Michael and his other sister Olga, Xenia was - at least to my knowledge - not the subject of a biography. I feel that Michael and Olga much in common, while Nicolas II and Xenia are quitesimilar. They had this extremely irritating passive approach to life. No real inititive, no fighting back and always chess pieces instead of chess players. This well written book complements as well the Memoirs of Grand Duke Alexander and sets some records straight. Well, all in all, a book to be read by all those who are interested in the fall of the Romanov dynasty. It will give you an inside into the Romanov Family in its final days. But do not expect to much of the personality you are going to read about.

NEW INSIGHTS ON THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL FAMILY
Grand Duchess Xenia was one of the 2 sisters of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II. Her sister has merited 2 biographies so far, but Xenia seems to have been completely forgotten to history. This book rights that wrong whilst providing many a new slant on a period of history that has been extensively covered by all media. Xenia was born in 1875, 7 years after Nicholas, to the Tsarevich Alexander and his wife Marie, who would soon become rulers of the vast Russian empire. She was born into a grand life, of huge palaces, great wealth, magnificent clothes and beautiful jewels - beyond the wildest dreams of people today and certainly beyond the wildest dreams of 19th century Russian peasants. She had a happy childhood with loving parents, but there was always an undercurrent of insecurity engendered by the horrific assassination her grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, when she was 5 years old. She married a cousin, another Alexander, just a few months before Nicholas made his fateful union with Princess Alexandra of Hesse. For many years, Xenia remained close to her brother and his wife, but eventually the evil spectre of Rasputin forced them apart. This did not stop poor Xenia being devastated when Nicholas had to abdicate and was sent into exile in Siberia. Xenia herself lived through the revolution in St Petersburg and experienced all the dangers and privations herself, before escaping to her summer home in southern Russia. There she, her husband, mother, children, sister and various other relatives lived a fairly peaceful life until the Bolsheviks reached them. They were all evacuated by a British warship on the orders of George V, Xenia’s cousin, who then allowed her to settle in a grace and favour home in England for the rest of her life. Money now became a problem. The King helped her out but Xenia had to sell most of her jewels. Her 24 room house was a lot smaller than the palaces she was used to. Her family scattered around the world, including her husband who went to live with his mistress in France. Xenia kept the dignity of a Grand Duchess until the end of her life, but not the trappings associated with it.
Van der Kiste and Hall have done some amazing and painstaking research to tell this romantic tale. It is very difficult to access Russian archives, still trapped in a Soviet way of thinking. Not only have they mined out nuggets there, they have gone back to Xenia’s diaries, helpfully deposited in an American archive, and translated valuable material that has never before seen the light of day. They have also had the good fortune to find an archive in London with a wealth of good photographic material. The same staid pictures of the Romanov family always appear, but not in this book. There’s a mass of new ones - even the cover features a picture of Xenia with Nicholas that our own Royal Archives didn’t realise they had. I cannot emphasise enough the detailed research that makes this book stand out. Not only does it tell the tale of the Russian revolution from a new standpoint, but with fresh facts. It is a tale worth telling and I applaud Hall and Van der Kiste for bringing Xenia to light.
Just as a quick afterthought, the book is very well laid out. Excellent family trees at the beginning of the book and not hidden away at the end, good photo reproduction and captioning, thorough bibliography and index. Will stand as a valuable work for anyone interested in Russian history, and for the general student, it is a very good read.

AN EXCELLENT ADDITION TO BIOGRAPHIES OF THE IMPERIAL FAMILY
This is an excellent book about Grand Duchess Xenia with lots of interesting new facts in it. It makes a nice change to have a book about someone, who has not been written about on her own before. It covers her whole life, both in Russia before the Revolution & afterwards in exile. It will add to the knowledge of everyone who is interested in The Russian Imperial Family.