Robert K. Massie (1929–2019)

I learned something I never knew: that before King George III hired 30,000 German Hessians to help fight his rebellious American colonists, he asked Catherine the Great to sell him the services of 20,000 Russian infantry and 1,000 Cossack cavalry. Catherine reluctantly declined given that she expected she’d need them to fight the Ottoman Turks. As Robert K. Massie dryly states, given how utterly the Americans learned to hate the king’s German mercenaries, we can only imagine what effect show more twenty thousand Russians would have had on 18th-century America.

Catherine’s story sounds unlikely: the daughter of a minor German prince is swept to the Russian court as the betrothed of Peter the Great’s grandson; endures an unspeakable marriage; overthrows her husband and sovereign within months of his accession with the full support of the Russian people, army, and church; and rules the Russian Empire as an absolute empress for over three decades.

Even that summary doesn’t do justice to her personality. She contained worlds within her: at once a progressive and humane daughter of the Enlightenment who tried to bring her adopted people closer to the mainstream of Western Europe, and also a thoroughly Russified autocrat convinced her realm was too backward, too vast, and too internally fractured to be ruled other than by an all-powerful monarch.

Massie writes well and easily, producing a 650-page biography that flies by. The first half is easily the best in terms of human drama. Massey follows Catherine’s lead in structuring a chronological narrative of her life, from her earliest days to the overthrow of her husband, along the lines of the memoirs she wrote and rewrote over the course of her life. The second half of the book is more conventionally biographical, devoting chapters to topics such as Catherine’s many lovers, her abortive attempt to rewrite Russia’s legal code, and the recoil of the French Revolution’s murderous excesses on Catherine’s thought and policies.

Massie won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of Peter the Great, and I’m not surprised given how enjoyable I found his account of the woman who defined Russia for a generation, who almost certainly ended the biological bloodline of Peter the Great, and who forged a new trajectory for the House of Romanov which lasted until its liquidation by the Bolsheviks in 1918. show less

Sophia Augusta Fredericka (later renamed Catherine) was born in 1729, the daughter of a minor noble in a minor German kingdom. She was chosen at age fourteen by Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, to be the bride of her son Peter and travelled to Russia with her determined and scheming mother. But in a Russian court full of ambition and jealousies, Sophia managed to maneuver herself onto the throne in 1762 through her charm and intelligence (and a generally bloodless coup). Once there, and show more inspired by the enlightenment philosophies of Voltaire, Diderot, and others, she sought to institute many changes in a society considered backward and primitive by other European countries and rulers. And while her sweeping and lofty reforms were rejected, she managed to leave her imprint on Russia in so many other ways throughout her 34 years as ruler – so much so that her people called her “Great.”

Mr. Massie writes an engaging and fascinating biography of Catherine II, and makes her intensely (and sometimes uncomfortably) human in the process. He brings her to life as a young woman in a foreign court faced with earning acceptance from the Empress, her future husband, power-hungry courtiers, and the Russian people. In her first few years on the throne she tried to gradually eliminate serfdom (slavery) but was opposed by the nobility (to which she owed in large degree her ascension to power). Interestingly, she also found that the serfs themselves were not progressive thinking enough to imagine such freedom – a rather rude awakening for her enlightenment beliefs – instead being more concerned about broken fences and small grievances like that. Later her views on emancipating the serfs turned completely around when she saw the violence and chaos of the French Revolution and the parallels to the Pugachev Rebellion she herself had faced. Another aspect of her life that was explained in a way that made her a sympathetic character was the different "favorites" (lovers) she had and her deep-seated desire just to be loved.

With excerpts from Catherine's own writings this bio offers a very insightful look into the politics and intrigue and the lives of European rulers and nobles during the latter half of the 1700s, and for being such a long book (nearly 600 pages before the index and bibliography) it's incredibly interesting. I thought pedigree charts explaining the relationships of the characters would have been helpful (mine was an advance copy from Amazon Vine, so perhaps the final book has them) and it would have been nice if a little more background had been given on nations outside Russia (only Poland and the French Revolution are explained in much detail, but little on Prussia, Germany, and Austria). Still, this was a remarkable book and didn't often show life as a princess or queen in a very charming manner. I'll definitely be looking to add Mr. Massie’s other books on the Romanovs and Russian history to my reading list.

(Modified from the original review posted on 11/5/11 on my blog: bookworm-dad.blogspot.com) show less

Though the heft of this book is daunting when you first pick it up, persevere. It only takes a few pages before you lose track of time and find yourself transported into the past. I read almost half the book in one sitting without even realizing it because the narrative was just so engaging. This is an excellently researched and well-drawn portrait of a truly fascinating woman who transformed herself from a pawn to the Empress of Russia. Massie's writing style is accessible and the show more characters he reveals through his prose create a deep well of interest and empathy. I knew very little about Catherine the Great before picking up this book, and was stunned by how she seized control of her own destiny to save herself and her adopted country.

Highly recommended. show less

A biography of Tsar Nicolas II, the last Romanov ruler of Russia, with the history of the last years of imperial Russia and the Communist revolution. Nicolas is portrayed as a quiet, kind and compassionate man, greatly in love with Alexandra, his wife. She, like many Royals of the late 19th century, is a relative of Queen Victoria, and unfortunately carries the X-linked gene for hemophilia. Her last of four children is the son that ensures the continuation of the Romanov dynasty, but he, show more Alexis, is born with hemophilia, and suffers greatly from bleeding into his joints after minor trauma. Alexandra believes that the prayers of the holy man (starets) Rasputin saved Alexis on several occasions, giving Rasputin power over the fate of imperial ministers and policy. This proves disastrous in the tumult of the First World War, as Russia suffers millions of casualties fighting Germany and Austria. The casualties lead the Russian army, once loyal to the tsar, to mutiny, and the Bolsheviks evict the more moderate Mensheviks that had formed the Duma, and seemed to be leading Russia to a constitutional monarchy. Nicholas, at the urging of Alexandra and Rasputin, resists yielding power throughout the war years, abdicating only after the army is in complete revolt. Lenin is sent back to St. Petersburg by the Germans, and his party takes over the government. This is a death sentence for the Tsar and his family
I enjoyed reading all the vivid details of Russian life, the drama of Rasputin, and the history of the time. I slowed my reading as the massacre of Nicholas, Alexandra, and their young daughters and son approached, because I had become fond of what seemed to be a good family. show less