Four Sisters - The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses

On 17 July 1918, four young women walked down twenty-three steps into the cellar of a house in Ekaterinburg. The eldest was twenty-two, the youngest only seventeen. Together with their parents and their thirteen-year-old brother, they were all brutally murdered. Their crime: to be the daughters of the last Tsar and Tsaritsa of All the Russias.In Four Sisters acclaimed biographer Helen Rappaport offers readers the most authoritative account yet of the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. Drawing on their own letters and diaries, she paints a vivid picture of their lives in the dying days of the Romanov dynasty. We see, almost for the first time, their journey from a childhood of enormous privilege, throughout which they led a very sheltered and largely simple life, to young womanhood - their first romantic crushes, their hopes and dreams, the difficulty of coping with a mother who was a chronic invalid and a haeomophiliac brother, and, latterly, the trauma of the revolution and its terrible consequences. Compellingly readable, meticulously researched and deeply moving, Four Sisters gives these young women a voice, and allows their story to resonate for readers almost a century after their death.

About the author

Helen Rappaport is a historian with a specialism in the nineteenth century. She is the author of eleven published books, including Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs and Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy. She is also the author, with Roger Watson, of Capturing the Light. For more information, you can visit her website at www.helenrappaport.com.

Summary

Award-winning and critically acclaimed historian Helen Rappaport turns to the tragic story of the daughters of the last Tsar of all the Russias, slaughtered with their parents at Ekaterinburg.

Report

Rappaport is insightful in her analysis of Alexandra's vulnerability [and] illuminates the precise influence of Grigori Rasputin . . . An astoundingly intimate tale of domestic life lived in the crucible of power. Observer

Product details

• Authors: Helen Rappaport, Rappaport Helen
• Publisher: Pan Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 29.01.2015
• EAN: 9781447227175
• ISBN: 978-1-4472-2717-5
• No. of pages: 512
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 200 mm x 34 mm
• Series: MACMILLAN
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > 20th century (up to 1945); Non-fiction book > History > Biographies, autobiographies; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies; Russia, HISTORY / Europe / General, HISTORY / Revolutionary, Russian Revolution, HISTORY / Women, Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions, History: specific events and topics, c 1914 to c 1918 (including WW1), Biography: historical, political and military, c 1914 to c 1918 (World War One period), 1917–1923 (Russian Revolutionary period), HISTORY / Russia / Soviet Era