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The Tsars
The tsars of Russia reigned as absolute monarchs long past the time when the authority of other sovereigns had been curtailed. Here, historian Alexander Ivanov reveals their fears and betrayals, privilege and debauchery, conspiracies and rivalries, love and tragedy as they forged Russia into one of the world's greatest empires.
No ruler in history has embodied the oppressive domination of these rulers more vividly than Alexander Ivanov's opening subject, Tsar Ivan IV, the first of all the Russian tsars, known to history as Ivan the Terrible. Although a gifted ruler who did much to unite and improve the conditions in his primitive country, Ivan was also a notorious sadist who delighted in torturing and murdering anyone who displeased him.
Ivan's death in 1584 ushered in the Time of Troubles, thirty-five years of famine, plague, and war that crippled the nation. A series of rulers attempted to cope with the devastation, beginning with Ivan's successor Boris Godunov. Finally, grasping for stability, Russia's nobles begged young Michael Romanov, the great-nephew of Ivan's beloved wife Anastasia, to take the throne. Michael successfully united the war-torn and ravaged nation and founded a dynasty that would rule for 300 years.
The Romanov line produced Russia's most brilliant yet most unconventional Peter the Great, a towering figure of a man whose restless, creative mind led him on an inexorable quest to modernize and civilize the still backward nation. The reforms he enacted so enraged nobles and peasants alike that Peter had to quash a series of rebellions to keep his crown. Ruthlessly stifling dissent and massacring rebels, he ultimately cowed the Russian people into submission, achieving a legacy that nearly equaled his ambitions.
It was left to a woman - and a foreigner, at that - to lead the nation further out of the darkness. German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, known to the world as Catherine the Great, absorbed the principles of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and applied them to a country built on the backs of millions of serfs. However ineffective some of her policies, in the end, she made Russia a major player on the European stage.
Serfdom was finally abolished in the nineteenth century, but it would be decades before Russian peasants could own land of their own and learn to farm it productively. The boyars and tsars clung to power until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The sad fate of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, marked the end of the absolute power that Ivan the Terrible had so exploited. The abuses would continue but under a new and drastically different form of government.
No ruler in history has embodied the oppressive domination of these rulers more vividly than Alexander Ivanov's opening subject, Tsar Ivan IV, the first of all the Russian tsars, known to history as Ivan the Terrible. Although a gifted ruler who did much to unite and improve the conditions in his primitive country, Ivan was also a notorious sadist who delighted in torturing and murdering anyone who displeased him.
Ivan's death in 1584 ushered in the Time of Troubles, thirty-five years of famine, plague, and war that crippled the nation. A series of rulers attempted to cope with the devastation, beginning with Ivan's successor Boris Godunov. Finally, grasping for stability, Russia's nobles begged young Michael Romanov, the great-nephew of Ivan's beloved wife Anastasia, to take the throne. Michael successfully united the war-torn and ravaged nation and founded a dynasty that would rule for 300 years.
The Romanov line produced Russia's most brilliant yet most unconventional Peter the Great, a towering figure of a man whose restless, creative mind led him on an inexorable quest to modernize and civilize the still backward nation. The reforms he enacted so enraged nobles and peasants alike that Peter had to quash a series of rebellions to keep his crown. Ruthlessly stifling dissent and massacring rebels, he ultimately cowed the Russian people into submission, achieving a legacy that nearly equaled his ambitions.
It was left to a woman - and a foreigner, at that - to lead the nation further out of the darkness. German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, known to the world as Catherine the Great, absorbed the principles of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and applied them to a country built on the backs of millions of serfs. However ineffective some of her policies, in the end, she made Russia a major player on the European stage.
Serfdom was finally abolished in the nineteenth century, but it would be decades before Russian peasants could own land of their own and learn to farm it productively. The boyars and tsars clung to power until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The sad fate of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, marked the end of the absolute power that Ivan the Terrible had so exploited. The abuses would continue but under a new and drastically different form of government.
124 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 14, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 10, 2019
Nice overview, but disjointed
I was eager to fill in the gaps of my knowledge of Russian history, and I was not disappointed by this effort. However, the author often got lost in the details (often repeated the same thing in several places) but failed to establish a clear chronological thread. I had to resort to Wikipedia to see which rulers he glossed over. All in all it was not bad, but could have been better.
I was eager to fill in the gaps of my knowledge of Russian history, and I was not disappointed by this effort. However, the author often got lost in the details (often repeated the same thing in several places) but failed to establish a clear chronological thread. I had to resort to Wikipedia to see which rulers he glossed over. All in all it was not bad, but could have been better.
June 11, 2020
Uninspired
February 7, 2019
Excellent overview
It's hard to capture the Romanov dynasty in 125 pages, but I thought Ivanov did an excellent job. I felt he highlighted the key points in the 300 years and the reader comes away with a good overview. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's hard to capture the Romanov dynasty in 125 pages, but I thought Ivanov did an excellent job. I felt he highlighted the key points in the 300 years and the reader comes away with a good overview. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
June 23, 2020
The Tsars
This was the saddest story I have read. Such pain in tradition. So many did not want the title while others longed for it. This book was VERY well done. I only knew about the last Tsar before I read this story.
This was the saddest story I have read. Such pain in tradition. So many did not want the title while others longed for it. This book was VERY well done. I only knew about the last Tsar before I read this story.
January 24, 2019
Poorly done
There’s little new information here that isn’t better covered in other books like “Catherine the Great” and “Peter the Great.”
There’s little new information here that isn’t better covered in other books like “Catherine the Great” and “Peter the Great.”
January 31, 2019
Real history
This book is alive. Thank you so much for making this period of history understandable, readable, and in full colour.
This book is alive. Thank you so much for making this period of history understandable, readable, and in full colour.
July 7, 2020
Nobility Or Not
Well written history of the European almost noble dynasties of The Russian nation. A must-read history for everyone! A keeper!
Well written history of the European almost noble dynasties of The Russian nation. A must-read history for everyone! A keeper!
January 23, 2022
It has been a short and easy enough introduction to the Russian history. I still lack knowledge to speak a por it.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews