Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1043192 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Synopsis
Using information from the Royal Archives and previously unavailable material from Scandinavia, this biography offers a re-appraisal of the life of Empress Marie Feodorovna, whose son Nicholas II was the last Tsar of Russia.

Customer Reviews

The only real biography on the Dowager Empress - a missed opportunity
Much has been written about Nicolas II and his family. His mother the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna features in all these books. However, she was never really subject to a proper biography, at least in the English language. So I was pretty happy that this book was written.

The Empress' s life could be Holywood stuff: a little princess from Danemark, not very well off, gets engaged to the handsome young Heir to the Russian Throne, he dies before the marriage but throne and bride is taken over by his younger brother. He becomes new the new Czar Alexander III, after his father Alexander II. has been torn to pieces by a terrorist bomb. Dagmer, now with the Orthodox Russian name Maria Feodorovna is his Empress. She dominates as an lively, elegant and bejuwelled consorts the court life. Then fate strucks again: the Emperor dies young and the son and heir Nicolas II. is quite unfit to rule. It all ends in the Russian Revolution. The Empress survives, but looses family, throne and country. She finds herself back in Denmark where she eventual dies. In the meantime sie has been re-burried in Russia.

But well who really was that person, this Dagmar, this Maria Feodorovna, this Empress and Dowager Empress? What was her role during the final years of the Russian Empire? The authors give us a lot of information and inside, but there is still something missing. It seems to be that she never really got to the bottom of her personality.Of course, that is difficult, but I believe that makes the very difference between a good and decent biography and a very good or superb one. The authors have to create a vision of that personality, even if one can argue about this, that and the other. They have to show the reader who they believe this person was. But this very decisive point is missing here. It is kind of a missed opportunity.

Having said this it is still a good biography and worthwhile reading as it is really the only biography one can read. But this will and should not be "the last word" on the Dowager Empress.

Missed opportunity, but still a decent biography
Much has been written about Nicolas II and his family. His mother the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna features in all these books. However, she was never really subject to a proper biography, at least in the English language. So I was pretty happy that this book was written.

The Empress' s life could be Holywood stuff: a little princess from Danemark, not very well off, gets engaged to the handsome young Heir to the Russian Throne, he dies before the marriage but throne and bride is taken over by his younger brother. He becomes new the new Czar Alexander III, after his father Alexander II. has been torn to pieces by a terrorist bomb. Dagmer, now with the Orthodox Russian name Maria Feodorovna is his Empress. She dominates as an lively, elegant and bejuwelled consorts the court life. Then fate strucks again: the Emperor dies young and the son and heir Nicolas II. is quite unfit to rule. It all end in the Russian Revolution. The Empress survives, but looses family, throne and country. She finds herself back in Denmark where she eventual dies.

Recently it was announced that she will be re-burried in Russia soon.

But well who really was that person, this Dagmar, this Maria Feodorovna, this Empress and Dowager Empress? What was her role during the final years of the Russian Empire? The authors give us a lot of information and inside, but there is still something missing. It seems to be that they never really got to the bottom of her personality.Of course, that is difficult, but I believe that makes the very difference between a good and decent biography and a very good or superb one. The authors have to create a vision of that personality, even if one can argue about this, that and the other. They have to show the reader who they believe this person was. But this very decisive point is missing here. It is kind of a missed opportunity.

Having said this it is still a good biography and worthwhile reading, but it is not "the last word" on the Empress.
So I would sa: 3 1/2 to 4 stars is a fair assesment.

Readable and enjoyable but not ground-breaking
A biography of the Empress Maria Feodorovna has been a long-time coming, and whilst Ms Hall's work was supremely readable and insightful it was not groundbreaking or in anyway revolutionary (perhaps appropriately.) But this should not detract from its merits, Ms Hall tackled (successfully so, I believe) a very difficult topic - the Empress was no picnic, to put it mildly. She comes out of this biography as a figure of immense dignity and importance but with just enough bad qualities to ensure that she does not become a two-dimensional character.