The Romanovs: Love, Power & Tragedy

by Manfred Knodt, Alexander Bockanov

English (translation)
Original Russian

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Romanovs, Russia, Historical, Biography

321 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love, love, love this book. It's a coffee table book, filled with the most beautiful photographs of the Romanovs, most of them family ones (versus official pictures). The quality is perfect. Most of them you can't find anywhere else. And apart from photographs, there are a lot of images of letters, journals, paintings made by the Romanovs - which are my absolutely favourite part of the book. I just think it's particularly special to read their letters in their own handwriting (which, especially in Nicholas' case, is 100% clear). My favourite is the back of an envelope from a letter Nicholas sent to Alexandra when they were engaged - he just writes "I love you my darling!!!".

The text, however, is not remarkable at all, and you can easily identify some translation mistakes (grammar mistakes, excerpts from diaries that have been published elsewhere that are wrong here, phrases that simply don't make any sense). But that really doesn't matter, because the pictures are what make this book so fantastic.

It is, however, very difficult to find. I think it took me about three years to find a reasonable deal online, and it was $60+ (which was awesome, because the price is usually $100+). Worth every penny!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous photographs. The text suffers from being poorly translated from Russian.

[Noreen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb. The many photographs on every page bring this heart wrenching story to life. Can't say enough good things about this work. Read it twice and yearn to read it again.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, though now outddated. Little attention is paid to the Grand Duchesses - for example, their brother Alexei Nikolaevich received a whole chapter dedicated to him, whilst each Grand Duchess got barely a page.
Furthermore, some of the information that the authors said was a mystery is very easy to uncover with just a bit of cross-referencing primary sources. 'Mitya', for example, was Dmitri Shakh-Bagov.
Some very nice photographs, but definitely more of a coffee table book and collector's appeal, rather than a scholarly one.

[Chubsi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The content of the book is as heavy and huge as the book physically. Very easy read, and if you're a fan for a long time before buying this book, you'll not find many rare pictures here. However, it's still a must in a Romanov fan's bookshelf.

[Mahalia Wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

super detailed and amazing!

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This stunningly beautiful coffee table book is one of my prized possessions. I am a Romanov nut and own almost every book that has been written on this tragic family and this beauty of a book is the crown jewell of my collection. The pictures are jaw droppingly gorgeous and really give you an intimate look into this firecly private family's life. As noted in other reviews the text is adequate at best and certainly provides a decent background on the family and their history but the pictures and letters are what make this book a stunner. I've owned this book now for almost 20yrs and it's still in mint condition which is a great thing because it is extremely hard to find these days and very expensive. If you are a Romanov fan like I am though this beautiful book is an absolute must have.

[Jenny Davidson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had lots of pictures, many of which were from the Tsars personal journals, and those of his children. Much of the written text was repeats of other books that I have read reguarding Nicolas and his family!

[Zola · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully human look at the final rulers of Russia. Full of very interesting pictures; I checked this book out from the local library but wouldn't mind picking up a used copy soon.