Book Review: The Romanovs 1613-1918

By Simon Sebag Montefiore

From cosmopolitan Saint Petersburg on the banks of the Neva to far off Vladivostok by the Japanese sea, Russia is a continent sized country that remains mysterious and inscrutable to most westerners. It stretches from Europe to the far east, a meeting point between east and west that has developed its own culture and is part of neither. For more than three hundred years Russia was ruled by a succession of tsars and tsarinas from the house of Romanov. In his latest book, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore tells the tale of this dynasty from its first tsar, Michael, to the revolution in 1917 that toppled the regime of tsar Nicholas II.

To most people, Montefiore asserts in the introduction, the reign of the Romanovs probably conjures up images of the 1917 revolution, of failure, backwardness and brutality. All this is true, in one guise or another. But the saga of the house of Romanov is also one of success, of vast territorial expansion, of great military victories and the taming of an ancient and savage land. There were arguably many failed tsars and tsarinas, but there was also Peter the Great and Catherine the great, Alexander I who doggedly fought his way to Paris in 1814 and Alexander II who freed the serfs and nearly conquered Constantinople. Although Russia under the Romanovs wasn’t industrialized or modernized to the full extent that Western European nations were, the country changed irrevocably during three centuries of Romanov reign. The autocracy that Bolshevik revolutionaries toppled in 1917 was a hybrid mix of ancient customs and sleepy gubernias as well as rapid economic growth in fledgling industries supported by western expertize. Reading The Romanovs paints a picture of a reactionary monarchy adopting to modernity at a leisurely pace, either by sheer necessity or because of a fascination with the west.

The fist Romanov tsar, Michael, governed a country significantly smaller than today’s Russia, that was steeped in orthodox traditions. His noblemen, or boyars, wore long beards and flowing robes while their women were forced to wear a veil in public and live in specially appointed quarters of the house, not mixing with the menfolk. Moscow was called the new Jerusalem, and from this hallowed city the tsar wasn’t simply governing an offshoot of the true church but acting as a protector of orthodox Christianity. Like so often in its history, however, Russia was assailed by enemies from without who had access to more modern weapons and technology. Defeating the well drilled armies of Sweden and Poland was not possible at the time, so Michael opted for a peace treaty, which gave him time to focus on rebuilding his realm after many years of strife. Russia grew in influence under Michael and his son Alexis, but wasn’t respected by its neighbors as a great European power.

That changed when Peter the Great ascended to the throne in the 1680s.  Described by Montefiore as a “hyperactive despot”, Peter was determined to modernize Russia and make sure his country was afforded the respect it deserved. An eccentric, larger than life character, Peter’s court contained more debauchery than all Game of Thrones episodes combined. Carriages transporting guests to lavish parties were drawn by bears and army of dwarves was made to wear ridiculous costumes while amusing the court with a song and dance routine. The partying was so intense that some of Peter’s closest advisors later died from liver failure. Alchoholism, as Montefiore asserts, seems to be very much a Russian national pastime. During the Great Northern war of 1700-1721, Russia asserted its supremacy at the cost of the declining Swedish Empire and the harried Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At long last Russia was no longer regarded by the European nations as a backward rural cousin. Even if he succeeded in raising Russia’s prestige on the international stage, Peter failed to achieve domestic harmony, and had long been distrustful of his eldest son’s deeply held orthodox conservatism. When he suspected his heir was hatching a plot to overthrow him, he was arrested and tortured, before he died in captivity shortly thereafter.    

The next significant stage of Russian expansion came under the reign of Catherine II, who ascended to the throne roughly forty years after Peter’s death. When the young Prussian princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg came to Russia to marry the future tsar Peter III, she sensibly changed her name to the shorter and more Russian sounding Catherine, and set about learning the language that her new countrymen spoke. Most Romanov marriages weren’t particularly happy or amicable, as Montefiore notes, and the union between Catherine and Peter was no exception. Her husband was an ardent Prussophile, who opposed the war that Russia was waging against Frederick II. Even though the Russians had the upper hand by the time he became tsar, he immediately sued for peace with his childhood hero. Frederick, who couldn’t believe his good fortune, naturally accepted the suggestion of an alliance between Prussia and Russsia. On the homefront, Peter was a reasonably well liked and capable ruler, who instigated some needed reforms. Nevertheless, he was ousted by a military coup d’etat led by Catherine less than a year into his reign. Clad in military uniform, Catherine led the guards regiment to overthrow her husband and seize power. Her reign is widely regarded by historians as a high point for imperial Russia. Her armies conquered Poland, Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula, while Catherine herself reigned as an enlightened monarch, inspired by the ideals of continental radicals like Voltaire.  She recognized serfdom as an unnecessary evil, yet she never went so far as to actually free her peasants from their feudal yoke. In order for Catherine to rule with vim and push, she had to be constantly in love, and took a string of paramours during her reign. The most notable being the dashing and highly intelligent cavalry officer Grigory Potemkin, whom she later named viceroy of Novorossiya, modern day Ukraine.

When Catherine was succeeded by her son Paul, possibly an even bigger Prussohpile than his father, storm clouds gathered over Europe. It was a time of revolution, and the tentative start of the age of industry. A moral conservative who probably wished he had been born a German instead, Montefiore notes that Petersburg under Paul started to look like a German hamlet from the seventeenth century instead of the fashion forward modern city it had been during Catherine’s reign. The consummate armchair general, Paul knew what was best for the Russian military despite not knowing anything about the military. Wearing an elaborate uniform, he took part in daily military parades where he publicly humiliated and admonished the nobles who displeased him. Needless to say, Paul was murdered in a coup d’état a few years later and his son, Alexander, succeeded him. 

Mysterious and underrated by history, the first half of Alexander’s reign came to be dominated by a Corsican artillery officer whose lightning rise had made him the master of Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte. As Napoleon’s Grande Armée tore through Europe, Alexander took part in a series of coalitions with the other great powers of Europe, Austria, Prussia and Great Britain, to thwart the burgeoning French empire. Initially, these efforts were somewhat of a failure as Alexander, eager for glory, ignored the advice of his one-eyed but redoubtable commander, Mikhail Kutuzov. Instead of retreating before the French advance, Alexander was determined to defeat Napoleon’s army. The ensuing battle of Austerlitz, that took place in December 1805, was Napoleon’s greatest triumph, outnumbered and outgunned, he managed to defeat the combined armies of Austria and Russia. After defeating Prussia in detail and inflicting another crushing defeat on Russia during the battle of Friedland in 1807, Napoleon was the master of Europe. The only thing that could bring him down by this stage was an invasion of Russia and a subsequent march on Moscow. This looked unlikely, but as Leonid Tolstoy observed in War and Peace, a scorpion has to sting. Angered by Alexander refusing to take part in his blockade of British trade, Bonaparte invaded Russia in 1812. At first things went well enough for the Grande Armée, but when fall turn to winter, the tables were turned on the French. After enduring the humiliation of abandoning Moscow and watching Napoleon burn the capital, subzero temperatures handily saw off the Grande Armée. Two years later Alexander rode into Paris at the head of his army and doffed his bicorne hat at blushing French ladies.  His quiet but dogged determination had helped him steer Russia through a dire national crisis and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Alexander’s reign represents the final successful chapter of Romanov saga. According to Montefiore, it was all downhill from that point. Popular unrest grew steadily as the Russian people demanded liberty and relief from harsh working conditions. Occasionally they got some reforms, but even the attempts of Alexander II to bring liberal Western values to Russia failed. Although he freed the serfs from their ancient bonds of servitude, this was too little too late. And it wasn’t just their social policies that were antiquated.  When it came to technology and industry, Russia was pretty much on the back foot throughout the nineteenth century. Nicholas I was jolted out of his lifelong obsession with military parades and gaudy uniforms when Russian armies were soundly thrashed by the French and British during the Crimean war. Heartbroken that his military was hopelessly obsolete and his life’s work had all been for nothing, he fell ill and died before Russia was forced to sue for a humiliating peace. Losing wars to more technologically advanced nations soon became a regular occurrence, with the occasional triumphant skirmish in the Caucasus restoring some miniscule amount of prestige to Russian arms. The last tsar, Nicholas II, suffered a humiliating defeat against Japan in the Russo-Japanese war, before he was defeated once more by the German Empire during World War I. This latest military debacle, combined with food shortages and dire conditions for workers, led to uprisings and eventually a Bolshevik revolution that was to cost Nicholas not just his throne but also his life. The tsar and his family were arrested by Bolshevik soldiers and executed by a firing squad in 1918. Rumors abound of how one of their daughters, Anastasia, survived, but those who long for the return of the Romanovs shouldn’t hold their breath. The old Russia of the tsars was transformed into a worker’s paradise, small hamlets and onion shaped domes replaced by steel plants and brutalist apartment blocks.

In The Romanovs, Montefiore gives a detailed account of the imperial family’s three centuries long reign. Interspersed with matters of state are more personal accounts of the sovereigns’ private lives that makes you feel like a trusted courtier at the Winter palace, observing the imperial spectacle first hand. Like the best Russian novels, The Romanovs has more characters than you can possibly be expected to remember and ends in abject tragedy. I would recommend it heartily.