Douglas Smith (2) (1962–)

4/5

If you are studying Russia and/or Russian history academically, I have a hard time believing that this wouldn't be a required text. It's so well researched, and explained. To it's own detriment outside of that academic context. So much time goes into every little scrap of correspondence by anyone even remotely of note that somehow involves Rasputin. It can be tedious and even exasperating to a reader like me that wanted some more brevity. Brevity is clearly not something that Smith was show more interested in. If your goal is to have a nuanced and detailed understanding of the circumstances surrounding Rasputin, and the characters that were his contemporaries, this is the book for you. Despite the moments of tediousness, there were sections that were genuinely interesting that felt like breaths of fresh air and reinvigorated me enough to finish. I especially loved the portions of the book that were told through Rasputin's own words. These passages from him are few, simply because of his limited literacy and his lack of public sermons, but they are still eye opening when Smith uses them.

Smith seems to lean slightly towards trusting Rasputin believers more than his detractors. Several times he trusts implicitly the word of his disciples, even if they are proven to lie, and mistrusts every single negative thing ever said about him. Part of this makes sense, because one of the driving goals of this biography is dispel the legend and myth surrounding Rasputin that have crystalized and become hard to disprove over the last century. It's a tall order, and Smith takes great lengths to do so. I found though that Smith didn't take quite as much time examining the claims of Rasputin's disciples. Many times their words are taken at face value, even though it's clear that most everybody was at least bending the truth of their reality.

What Smith makes abundantly clear though is that while Rasptuin did accrue a lot of power over his years of associating with Nicholas and Alexandra, he did not have complete control. He was not the de facto leader of Russia at any point during his life, nor did he sin at the scale that many tales would have you believe. He was a devoutly religious person who grew up in Siberia, and just like anybody else was prone to bending to the temptations of his life in Petersburg. He was consistently a lecherous person motivated by women, booze, and partying. The myth surrounding Rasputin was a product of the time and place he lived in, a place of spiritual and monarchical decay that was headed towards revolution without him. Many have placed blame on the shoulders of Rasputin, but Smith argues that blame for the fall of the Tsar rests on his own ineptitude as a leader. Had Nicholas and Alexandra recognized that they could not be insulated from the responsibilities of the crown in their personal life, not attached themselves to mysticism, or poorly managed the empire, perhaps the reign of monarchs in Russia would've lasted longer. Regardless, change was coming to Russia. Rasputin happened to be a catalyst for that change, both because of his large character and because of the situation he found himself in, but the change was coming with or without him eventually.

Is all 600 pages of this worth it for someone with a passing interesting in Russian history? Maybe not. I'm glad to be done with it, but I will say that it is without a doubt the most well researched biography I've ever read, and has left me feeling well versed in everything to do with Rasputin. show less

Ровно сто лет назад была расстреляна царская семья. Читая книгу Дугласа Смита, можно посчитать, что Николаю II еще повезло. «Последние дни» русской аристократии растянулись на десятилетия, но история дворянства (почти 2 млн. человек на конец XIX века) была одним из show more многочисленных «белых пятен» в истории CCCР, о ней нельзя было говорить, и по этой причине она не существовала, словно была стерта и исчезла. «Бывшие люди», пожалуй, первая в мире книга, посвященная исследованию судеб российских дворян после революции. Уточним, что в основном речь в ней идет о трех больших фамилиях – Голицыных, Трубецких и Шереметевых, однако в силу их размера, знатности, влиятельности и богатства экс-князья и графы в наибольшей мере ощутили прелести контакта с ненавидящим их режимом. Выжили единицы, и, пожалуй, стоило сразу бежать, но существовал узнаваемый нюанс. С началом Первой мировой войны многие дворяне перевели капиталы из заграницы в Россию в знак готовности поддержать хозяйство страны в военное время. Вывод капитала из страны считался непатриотичным. К началу революции лишь очень немногие дворяне располагали заграничными капиталами, на которые могли рассчитывать. show less

Solid book recounting how the American Relief Administration provided aid to Russia in the 1921-1923 period during the Great Volga famine. The author points out that the incident is often overlooked, and the author is right. One major positive in the book is a wealth of photographs, taken from the ARA's own archives. Also, I think, a fair book, in that ARA's horns and well as its haloes are shown. The Russians come across particularly badly in this account (which, in this day, surprises me), show more with numerous attempts to manipulate and obstruct the process. Not a book to be popular in Moscow, these days. Recommended. show less

"Former people" - the very phrase invokes ghostly images. And though it's a rather loose translation of the Russian word "lishentzy" - meaning "people without any rights in the society", it's an adequate phrase, in the light of events portrayed in the book, to describe former nobles and aristocrats, those that didn't leave Russia after the Revolution of 1917. That's how the author refers to them throughout the book, concentrating on the fate of two most prominent noble families and their show more descendants - the Sheremetevs and the Golittsyns - but also touching upon countless more former nobles (counts and countesses, princes and princesses, aristocrats and landlords) and their lives on the brink of and after the Revolution. The book describes the futility of their efforts to stay afloat in this new political climate that totally disregarded them by not allowing them to work, or if they could find work to barely survive, they had to constantly be in fear of imprisonment for some dreamed up crimes against the new government. The paranoia of Lenin and Stalin is not a secret anymore, and it reflected on many more citizens in those first decades of the new state (up until Stalin's death in 1953), not just former nobles, but Douglas Smith collected invaluable evidence of how this particular class of people was treated. It only shows that it was Russia who lost - because all these people were highly educated and they could have been a great asset to any society in that regard (and they were more than willing to serve in professional capacity of any kind, even though stripped of all their possessions).

I think the author says it best in the end, summarizing his story:

"... the events described in this book, or, more precisely, the causes behind them, lie beyond reason, as much as we might like to think otherwise.... There was a randomness to the violence and repression that speaks to the illogical nature of Russian life in twentieth century... There simply is no way to explain why some perished and some survived. It was, and remains, inexplicable. It was chance or, as many Russians would have it, fate."

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