Secrets of Dethroned Royalty

by Catherine Radziwill

An insider’s gossipy, tell-all account of pre-revolutionary royal life, full of scandals, rivalries, and affairs, among the great dynasties of Europe.

In the wake of World War I, a series of revolutions ended the reign of Europe’s last great royal families. Much has been written about how these dynasties—the Romanovs of Russia, the Hapsburgs of Austria, and the Hohenzollerns of Germany—helped shaped the events of their own demise. But in Secrets of Dethroned Royalty, Princess Catherine Radziwill pulls back the royal curtain to reveal a sordid, personal portrait of greatness in decline.

A Polish-Russian aristocrat, Princess Catherine Radziwill had a famous penchant for scandal. First published in 1920, Secrets of Dethroned Royalty is a candid collection of events and anecdotes, all recounted as only she could tell them.

Genres: Nonfiction

110 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1920

About the author

Wrote under the pseudonym Count Paul Vasili.

Princess Catherine Radziwiłł (Polish: Katarzyna Radziwiłłowa; 30 March 1858 – 12 May 1941) was a notable Polish aristocrat. Born in Russia into the House of Rzewuski, her maternal family was the illustrious Dashkov-Vorontsov. Carefully educated, in 1873 she married the Polish Prince Wilhelm Radziwiłł.

She became a prominent figure at the Imperial courts in Germany and Russia, but became involved in a series of scandals. She combined her love for the luxury of the courts, social life, gossip and intrigue with her literary talent and she is notable as the author of two dozen books on European royalty and the Russian court in particular most notably: Behind the Veil at the Russian Court (1914) and her autobiography It Really Happened (1932).

Reviews

[Kelley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Princess Radziwill wrote this gossipy book, which she meant to be critical of royal and noble foibles, the insider stories of which certainly were not meant to be at the time public fodder. Her focus on the failed imperial nobility of Russia, Austria, and Germany seemed intriguing at first blush but failed miserably because her apparent bitterness, the possible motive of this book. Yet in actuality, she showed herself to be a gossipy, and superficial onlooker and participant of the upper crust she so fervently criticizes. She consistently referred to these nobles as "stupid" -- often labeling entire families as such. She frequently was compelled to comment upon people's physical beauty and ugliness, traits which clearly mattered to her. A few remarks led me to wonder and her prejudice towards Jews as well. Her prose was often muddled. When telling stories, she'd use so many pronouns that one couldn't understand who she was writing about. Other times she was so vague (and perhaps afraid) to describe an event fully that we as readers were left to guess what she really meant. Finally, while she mentioned she was part of this upperclass world, she never recounted her own exploits, which is an unsurprising oversight on her part. Equally as mystifying is that her clear disdain for nobility and royals is amazingly hypocritical for one who writes under the titled name "Princess Catherine Radziwill". When this book was written in the 1920s, this was juicy and salacious, and that holds true today as well. I'm sure she would have been totally at ease in the modern world of supermarket tabloids "journalism".

[JW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gossip, gossip and more gossip about the Romanovs, Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and assorted minor German royals. A quick read from an unreliable narrator – Princess Radziwell went to jail in South Africa for fraud. The kindle version is littered with typos.

[AR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full of curious insights, particularly in terms of the personalities that inhabited the dethroned courts of Europe.

[Chris Maska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gossip Girl for the last of the Royals

Noble lady deals the dirt on the highest ranking members of now defunct empires. How true is it? As with most gossip, no one knows.

[Nyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the books by Princess Catherine Radziwill. You have to take them with a grain of salt -- its gossip as history and history as gossip. But there's no getting around how intimate and personal that history is; little bits of information you won't come across elsewhere, details of what was going on at the time. It is a point of view without hindsight, with all the prejudices of the time and of the princess herself.

[noel izon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Factual Errors

I noted several factual errors regarding the Russian royals and their offspring, which suggests there may be many more throughout the book, as these facts could have been easily checked. For instance, the author claims that Michael Romanov fathered two sons with his eventual wife, Natalia. This is simply incorrect. She had a daughter, Tatiana Mamontova, with her first husband, and one son, George, with Michael.

[Avis Black · Rating 2.5 out of 5]

Gossipy and interesting, though the author has a Victorian-era sense of delicacy. She won't give you the juiciest details, though she'll hint at them. Many of the stories are about what people would consider today to be rather obscure German and Austrian nobles.