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03-13-2013, 11:41 AM
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Serene Highness
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Marshallville, United States
Posts: 1,126
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I just downloaded a sample to my Kindle, I have always been very interested in the Tsar Nicholas, Tsarina Alix, and the Grand Duchesses. I can't wait to read it! Thanks for the link!!
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06-26-2014, 10:46 PM
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Majesty
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Conneaut, United States
Posts: 6,230
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Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
Has anyone had a chance to purchase Camera and the Tsars: The Romanov Family in Photographs by Charlotte Zeepvat?
What are the quality of the photographs?
The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Petr II: 1715-1730 by Dmitriev D./Polezhaev
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10-15-2015, 10:45 AM
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Newbie
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Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Glendive, United States
Posts: 1
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New book on Franziska Schanzkowsky, the Anastasia pretender
"Almost Anastasia tells the story of Franziska Schanzkowsky, the former factory worker who convinced royals, courtiers, and forensic experts that she was actually the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Nicholas II and sole survivor of the 1918 massacre at Ekaterinburg. DNA analysis has established who she really was, but once that mystery was solved the real mystery began—how did she do it? Why did she do it? What would it be like to step into someone else's life and live it forever? A work of narrative nonfiction drawn from original documents (some never before translated into English) and interviews with the people who knew her, Almost Anastasia follows Franziska from the streets of Berlin to the castles of deposed royalty, from Jazz Age New York to Nazi Germany and beyond. It is a tale of mystique, madness, and one woman’s determination to fool the world."
http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Anastas...most+anastasia
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03-28-2016, 09:12 PM
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Heir Apparent
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Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Lisboa, Portugal
Posts: 5,051
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Interesting book. I hope you are on sale here in Portugal.
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My blogs about monarchies
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03-29-2016, 11:25 AM
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Serene Highness
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: San Diego, United States
Posts: 1,448
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This woman and her husband were not dealing with a full deck. When their cats died, they would cremate them in the fireplace. The neighbors were not amused.
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03-29-2016, 10:29 PM
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Serene Highness
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Waterford, United States
Posts: 1,092
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She was lucky PETA wasn't around then.
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03-29-2016, 11:13 PM
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Majesty
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Conneaut, United States
Posts: 6,230
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How would Franziska have been so informed on very personal details of the court of Tsarina Alexandra? Obviously not every minute detail would have been written in newspaper articles.
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04-01-2016, 05:37 AM
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Aristocracy
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: Victoria, Australia
Posts: 228
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Franziska's knowledge of life at the Russian Court came out of books and magazines that probably revealed more information than people realised. In the 1920s she spent a lot of time with exiled monarchists whose memories she must have paid careful attention to. Some may have inadvertently fed her information, others deliberately. Her "memories" were not always spot on, but people wanted to believe and helped her fill in the gaps. She must have been quite shrewd in the early years of her claim. But what's really impressive is that despite her appalling behaviour and major psychological problems, her supporters always stuck by her. Franziska was not the Grand Duchess she claimed to be, but it doesn't really matter now. In the end she won. She will always be part of the history of the young lady whose identity she usurped. What I would love to know, however, is whether she came to believe it herself.
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04-01-2016, 06:09 AM
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Majesty
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 7,705
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Did she come to believe that she really was Anastasia? I think she was delusional and after decades of throwing herself into the 'role' it did become real to her.
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08-26-2016, 11:57 PM
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Courtier
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Los Angeles, United States
Posts: 797
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CyrilVladisla
How would Franziska have been so informed on very personal details of the court of Tsarina Alexandra? Obviously not every minute detail would have been written in newspaper articles.
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The problem is that she was rather I'll informed, but the public had no way to verify her memoirs, and she got away with most of her tales. I just read Gilliard's book "The false Anastasia", and it was a real eye opener. In it, he explains how Franzisca obtained much of her information and the glaring mistakes she made. He also tells about Franzisca mistaking Shura for Grand Duchess Olga.
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08-27-2016, 03:49 AM
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Majesty
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Join Date: Apr 2016
Location: London, United Kingdom
Posts: 7,498
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Curryong
Did she come to believe that she really was Anastasia? I think she was delusional and after decades of throwing herself into the 'role' it did become real to her.
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I think it did. she clearly had mental problems, and Im sure she was able to fool herself and her self belief helped her to play the role. And a lot of people wanted to believe her. A "lost princess" is interesting and perhaps people also wanted to belive that SOMEone had survived the massacre.
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08-27-2016, 02:18 PM
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Courtier
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Los Angeles, United States
Posts: 797
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She never believed that she was Anastasia. In an unguarded moment, she said to Miliukoff: You mean who I am, or who I pretend to be?
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10-26-2016, 11:09 PM
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Majesty
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 7,705
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CyrilVladisla
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie
Has anyone had a chance to purchase Camera and the Tsars: The Romanov Family in Photographs by Charlotte Zeepvat?
What are the quality of the photographs?
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A bit late in answering, Cyril, by a couple of years,  but I think this book is absolutely beautiful, with excellent photos.
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02-25-2017, 12:24 AM
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Courtier
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Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Posts: 548
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As part of the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Robert Service is releasing a new biography of Nikolai II. Service is one of the main experts on twentieth century Russian history and is also the author of highly praised studies of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, along with a very good one volume history of twentieth century Russia. Since the last major English study as Dominic Lieven's bio which was published 25 years ago, this should be very interesting.
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors...t-of-the-tsars
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...omanovs-review
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...service-review
On top of that there will be doubtless many other books for the anniversary as well. However what is really intersting me is how the Russian government will react to the anniversary, given how divisive it is in Russia today. Knowing how Putin thinks they'll probably blame it on the foreigners as they always do...
PS) I'm not Service's schill if the above gave that impression
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02-25-2017, 12:32 PM
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Majesty
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: City, Kazakhstan
Posts: 8,013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WreathOfLaurels
... [snipped]
On top of that there will be doubtless many other books for the anniversary as well. However what is really intersting me is how the Russian government will react to the anniversary, given how divisive it is in Russia today. Knowing how Putin thinks they'll probably blame it on the foreigners as they always do...
PS) I'm not Service's schill if the above gave that impression
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Have the British scientists ever lost an opportunity to make money?
The government reaction in question will be standard: solemn.
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02-25-2017, 01:23 PM
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Moderator Emeritus
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 4,112
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What on earth do British scientists have to do with this? Robert Service is a historian who focuses on Soviet history. Has nothing to do with British scientists...
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02-25-2017, 01:43 PM
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Majesty
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: City, Kazakhstan
Posts: 8,013
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History is often categorised as science. So Mr Service is a British scientist. Given the anti-Russian frenzy in the enlightened western regimes, he will make money.
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02-25-2017, 04:20 PM
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Moderator Emeritus
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Posts: 4,112
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I don't know how history is categorized in Kazakhstan or the East in general, but in the West it's a humanity. Humanities can be classified as social sciences, but that's a bit of a loose classification, and it's even more so a stretch to classify historians as scientists.
I'm not going to get into the "anti-Russian frenzy" going on in the West right now as it would be off topic for this thread, and political which I'm fairly certain is against the rules of this forum. I will say that claiming that Robert Service is going to make money off of anti Russian sentiments by publishing a book about Nicholas II is more of a stretch than calling him a scientist.
For starters, Robert Service is a historian who has been publishing works on Russian history for 30 years now. It's fairly safe to say that a man who has spent his entire career focusing on 20th century Russian history (his previous works include biographies of Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky), isn't likely to publish a biography of a Russian figure just to profit off of a rise in anti-Russian sentiments. More likely - more logically - he's written this to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the death of Nicholas II and his family. Profit definitely factors into it a bit - much like previous historians who released works at the time of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the start of WWI, etc Service is very likely hoping that the milestone anniversary will generate extra interest in his book, particularly as the Romanovs have continued to captivate an interest in Western society (I don't know about Eastern society in that regards, I suspect it's a bit more complicated in Russia than it is in Western countries if for no reason other than because it's Russian history, and a country's history tends to be more complicated within that country than elsewhere).
Thirdly, and this is a bit off topic and political, but the anti-Russian sentiments in the West right now has little to do with Russian history and more to do with current events and how they're being interpreted and represented in the West (right or wrong, for better or worse). That's not going to make someone in the West want to read a biography of Nicholas II.
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