Bibliograph

Type

Label

Secret lives of the tsars, three centuries of autocracy, debauchery, betrayal, murder, and madness from Romanov Russia, Michael Farquhar

Language

eng

resource.biographical

collective biography

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Secret lives of the tsars

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Oclc number

882104835

Responsibility statement

Michael Farquhar

Sub title

three centuries of autocracy, debauchery, betrayal, murder, and madness from Romanov Russia

Summary

-- Washington Post Scandal! Intrigue! Cossacks! Here the world's most engaging royal historian chronicles the world's most fascinating imperial dynasty: the Romanovs, whose three-hundred-year reign was remarkable for its shocking violence, spectacular excess, and unimaginable venality. In this incredibly entertaining history, Michael Farquhar collects the best, most captivating true tales of Romanov iniquity. We meet Catherine the Great, with her endless parade of virile young lovers (none of them of the equine variety); her unhinged son, Paul I, who ordered the bones of one of his mother's paramours dug out of its grave and tossed into a gorge; and Grigori Rasputin, the "Mad Monk, "whose mesmeric domination of the last of the Romanov tsars helped lead to the monarchy's undoing. From Peter the Great's penchant for personally beheading his recalcitrant subjects (he kept the severed head of one of his mistresses pickled in alcohol) to Nicholas and Alexandra's brutal demise at the hands of the Bolsheviks, -- Praise for -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- "A terrifically accessible history."--Kirkus Reviews From the Trade Paperback edition

Table Of Contents

Introductory chapter: The Time of Troubles and the rise of the Romanovs -- Ivan V and Peter I (1682-1696): one autocrat too many -- Peter I (1696-1725): the eccentricities of an emperor -- Catherine I (1725-1727): the peasant empress -- Anna (1730-1740): "a bored estate mistress" -- Elizabeth (1741-1762): the empress of pretense -- Peter III (1762): "nature made him a mere poltroon" -- Catherine II (1762-1796): "prey to this mad passion!" -- Paul (1796-1801): "he detests his nation" -- Alexander I (1801-1825): Napoleon's conqueror -- Nicholas I (1825-1855): "a condescending Jupiter" -- Alexander II (1855-1881): "a crowned semi-ruin" -- Alexander III (1881-1894): "a colossus of unwavering autocracy" -- Nicholas II (1894-1917): "an absolute child" -- Nicholas II (1894-1917): "gliding down a precipice" -- Nicholas II (1894-1917): a bloody end -- Concluding chapter: Aftermath

Classification