The Russian Revolution in the 20th Century occurred in an incredibly tumultuous time for the entire world. In comparison, and considering that I took American History while in high school, the Russian Revolution was so much more bloody, destructive, and for lack of a better word scary than the American Revolution. The amount of people who were killed because of their political alliances, and “thought of” political alliances is saddening to say the least. But, it was the destruction of an entire family that really is the most devastating during this time.

I have been a big fan of learning all I can of the last Tsar and his family for a while now. I either own or read many of the biographies that have been published on their time ruling over the Russian Empire and how that came to end and they were martyred. Recently, in September 2014, Helen Rappaport published a new biography entitled The Romanov Sisters, emphasizing the four Romanov daughters: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia and their lives as daughters of the Emperor. Thus far, there has not been a nonfiction that specifically details the daughters personalities, how they spent their time growing up, or any specifics; most novels actually focus on the love between Alexandra and Nicholas and how they fell as Emperor and Empress of the Russian Empire. Needless to say, when this book was finally released, I just had to pick it up.

Rappaport does a fantastic job throughout the novel of incorporating  paragraph-long excerpts from the diaries of the Romanovs and their friends and servants. This incorporation was annoying at first, but really drove home the point that what Rappaport was discussing was actually stated by individuals who knew the Romanov sisters on a personal level. Moreover, I really enjoyed Rappaports level of detail throughout the work. She really focused on the personal lives of the Romanov family and I learned a substantial amount of information on such insignificant daily occurrences such as: the sisters tutors and what their day was usually made up of (i.e. tutoring, tea time, exercise, reading, sewing). Lastly, no such book has ever gone into detail of the personalities of the girls. Tatiana was very much like Alexandra, whereas Olga was the quiet one who kept to herself and was at times a bit depressing. Alternatively, Anastasia was crazy. Always laughing, always making others smile, and in considering that towards the end of all of their lives, they were in a place where they needed to laugh and smile, she was definitely a Godsend.

Two things I learned from the novel, other than the varying personalities of the sisters was the amount of time they spent nursing soldiers in their hospitals and their interactions with others (which is a vague statement, but you will understand). When Russia went to war in the mid-1910s, Russia saw a massive influx of Russian troops coming back from the battles injured. Alexandra was a huge proponent in establishing hospitals and aiding the recuperation of army members. What I didn’t know before reading this novel, was that all the girls aided their mother in the hospitals, and learned a substantial amount about nursing, caring for invalids, and the like. I never knew that the girls were that active in the hospitals and caring for soldiers, which really surprised me for royal children to get their hands that dirty in the care of individuals. Another piece of information that I did not know until reading this piece was the girls interactions with individuals “below their station.” When the sisters were young, the entire royal family would go to Crimea and take the Shtandart (a yacht) for the summer. On this yacht, the sisters interacted with all of the soldiers that were stationed to protect their father, and the whole family for that matter, and the girls showed their personalities with the soldiers. Moreover, as the sisters grew up, they were allowed to interact with individuals and continue to act and play as if they were young children. It’s incredibly interesting to me that as teenagers their parents would allow the level of interaction between young women and older soldiers, as well as perpetuate the girls not growing up. Rappaport presents an immense amount of evidence that the girls continued to act like children even as they grew up, as if Alexandra and Nicholas were both in denial that their daughters were not children but turning into budding adults. It’s almost as if A&N thought that they could keep their family close-knit for as long as possible if the daughters were not allowed to grow up. Something that history will never know though.

Now, for as much as I have learned from reading this novel (and this is not a con, but be warned, it took me a long time to finish because it is a tedious read), there were some things in which I was not a huge fan of. For how long this book is, there was an immense amount of focus not on the sisters, but actually Alexandra herself, her physical battles, her mental battles, and how she was as a mother. The title of the book however is The Romanov Sisters not the Romanov Daughters of Alexandra. I understand that a lot of how the sisters were raised was heavily dependent on their mother, but it’s almost as if Rappaport really painted Alexandra to be a down on her luck human being and wanted it conveyed to the reader that they should be sorry for her. I did, but I was a bit angry because I have read biographies of Alexandra, in which the focus was on her health (both mental and physical) so I knew already of the trouble that occupied her life, but I wanted to learn more of the daughters. Another major con of this work would also have to be the glazing over of important pieces of information. The most glaring would have to be the end of the family and how they reached their demise. I read an entire book that chronicled the last days of the Romanovs in Ekaterinburg. A lot happened between the time that the family moved there to when they were martyred, and Rappaport gives 6 pages to this time. More importantly there was half of a paragraph on how they were killed, and actually Rappaport just says they went in a single file line down to the basement and never actually says they were shot, by who, or how the orders were conveyed, nor does she go into what happens to their bodies and where they were buried. The end of the Romanovs is one of the most critical pieces of information out there, and to just blatantly glaze over it or not even say anything about it was incredibly disheartening. Rappaport pays more attention to love notes than this, which is, quite frankly, a bit sickening. Honestly, the sisters had nothing to do with the Revolution, and probably would never have fought for their seats as Empresses of Russia if they were to escape so their deaths were in cold blood and they were the true martyrs. This is a theme that I think Rappaport really missed, or didn’t even want to drive home, in that the sisters were innocent individuals who were killed because of their parents and what they did, and not who they were. Unfortunately, this negated most of the details that I didn’t know about the sisters and left me a bit angry towards the end of the work.

Regardless of the details that Rappaport leaves out of this work, I learned an immense amount of information about the sisters, who they were, and how they grew up to be the daughters of royalty. I hope I can one day go see their final resting place and pay my respects. They would have been great individuals, good people that the world needed in the dark times that were coming. It’s almost a good thing that they never saw the disaster that befell Russia following their deaths, but the world will never know. Rest in peace OTMA.