"What pleasure is it to be a tsar?"
352460
So asks a tormented Ivan in this second part of Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible."  Ivan 2 is, I think, a better production than Ivan 1.  The interplay of light and shadow that Eisenstein so masterfully achieves comes through here with splendid effect:  Ivan, the out-of-control, lonely, isolated, and half-mad tsar is really a little man who casts a disproportionately large shadow.  Eisenstein expresses this truth throughout the film with his camera shots and lighting.  No wonder Stalin took such offence at the film, which didn't see the light of day until the Soviet Tsar of All the Russias died.

The Ivan in Part 2 is obviously crazy and power-hungry.  But the viewer is able to sympathize just a little bit with him because he's so miserable.  Nor are his adversaries much better.  The religious authorities plot against him because they are jealous of his power--the Orthodox Metropolitan is described at one point as having a white cowl but a black soul--and Ivan's aunt Serifima, who's been his nemesis in both of the film's parts, is just as obsessed with power as Ivan.

Two magnificent scenes in Ivan 2 especially stand out:  the accusatory skit in the cathedral, in which Ivan's excesses are "safely" denounced in a passion play, and the assassination of Ivan's half-witted cousin and the destruction of Serifima's schemes.  They both really stand out as high points in the history of western cinema.

The theme throughout the film is that a sovereign should be good, but should be willing to take the path of evil if it's absolutely necessary for the survival of his nation--the "dirty hands" motif.  Eisenstein's film is deliberately ambivalent in addressing the dirty hands issue, which was probably a coded criticism of Stalin.

The film is mostly in black and white.  Towards the end, the film rolls over to color, and then in its final moments switches back to black and white.  I don't think this is a deliberate artistic decision so much as a technical issue.
420950
An easy read for those interested in a view of the personalities and historical perspective of the Russian Tsar leadership.
1715433
Radzinsky has painstakingly portrayed not only Rasputin but also the period during which he lived. Rasputin has remained a mysterious figure in Russian history and many have sought to find out the basic character of this peasant from Siberia who controlled the destiny of the empire through various nefarious means.
 Radzinsky provides a lot of information, historical background and a rich drama surrounding the people during this time. Just like a great Russian novel, the number of characters present is many. There are many intrigues and plots. Getting to know the real Rasputin remained an illusion.  Whatever he might have been, he was a shrewd, quick learner. He had a great capacity to understand people. How else can otherwise he would have such powerful hold on people?
The discussion on the Khlyst movement is interesting and it reminds me of the Tantric system in India where sex is not only not forbidden, but is an integral part of religious practice. The American readers will surely remember Rajnish who a decade or so ago tried to build a group of followers with his "Tantric" system. Radzinsky has taken great care to present the detailed points of view for this Khlyst movement. It is indeed difficult to comprehend the logic of this system blending pagan rituals.
I find this book very important to get an inside look of the tsarist Russia. It takes an effort to maintain attention to this book, as the writing style is a bit dry and boring. Otherwise, it is must for you, if you are interested in this period of history.
1705764
It was Churchill who described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".  This vast often frozen country that has defied conquerors over time has also been unwilling to undergo liberal democratic progress.  Russia has truly been a mystery.

It was Napoleon's view that Russia could be beaten.  It was inevitable that this huge but primitive country would be no match for his Grand Armee.  His victory would act as a spur for still greater future victories.

However, Russia could not be broken.  In fact, even though Napoleon actually reached Moscow, the actions of scorched earth plus the horrors of a Russian winter could not be overcome.

Adam Zamoyski succeeds admirably in bringing the horrors of Napoleon's initial victories then subsequent defeats to the stark attention of the reader.  War is never pleasant but the winter of 1812 must have been plumbing new depths.  Zamoyski is a fine historian.

It is perhaps inevitable that Zamoyski's work will be compared with Antony Beevor's work on the German defeat at Stalingrad.  Personally, if it is possible to compare, then I recommend the latter.  However, the two books perform a similar task in explaining why Russia has not bowed to conquerors nor yield many clues to its mystery.
256443
It's Russian liturgical music...you either like it or hate it!
741804
If you love history, even if you don't know anything about Russian history, this is one of the best books you will ever read. It describes the Russian empire before its fall, and it describes how it fell, in a way that almost makes you feel that you were there. I have read this book at least six times (that's why I needed a new copy).
1042970
Although this is a well known story where you know the ending it is always a treat to learn more about this fascinating part of history. Alexander brings the final days of the Romanovs to life with his fictional conjecture. However, you can tell his research is so in-depth that his fictional conjecture is not too huge a leap. This family was blindsided and the betrayal they must have felt in the last few minutes of their lives must have been unimaginable. I wish Alexander would have taken creative license and jumped into each characters mind for their final thoughts as the pistols were raised.... did Alexei feel a small bit of relief to be done with this sickly life, did Alexandra renounce her God, did Nicholas see the error of his dogmatic thinking all in a nanosecond?
As a reader it is a delight to bounce from the non-fictional and fictional aspects of the novel. And just to make it even more of an enjoyable read, Alexander throws in a twist at the end that leaves you wondering if such a possibility could ever have existed. If you are a Romanov aficionado you will enjoy the conjecture and if you are new to the Romanovs you will enjoy the learning the details of this tragic story.
3454119
Ivan Susanin is not known in the west, and it is unfortunate. Without knowing "Life for the Tsar" it is impossible to fully understand the works of Mussorgsky and Rimskiy-Korsakov.  In this recording, the sound  is not first class, but the master of the Bolshoi orchestra Aleksandr  Melik-Pashayev is conducting wonderfully. Mikhailov is great. His voice is  warm and large. Nelepp has a rare dramatic tenor, with a ring at the top,  equal to Del Monaco or Corelli. Shpiller has a full liric soprano, and her  Antonida is better then most sopranos I have heard. The only serious cut is  the epilogue "SLAV'SIA". Melik-Pashayev's tempos are faster then  most conductors tend to use in this opera.
563794
This is a translated version, and since I cannot read Russian, I cannot tell how well it conveys what Tolstoy really wrote and meant. What I can say after reading this mammoth novel is that it is lifelike. In one book, Tolstoy presents the Russia of late 19th century, the urban Moscow and Petersburg hoi polloi, the rural noblemen and peasantry, politics, religion, horse racing, hunting, balls, love, adultery, heartbreaks, death, birth, marriage and everything else that needs to be put on this masterpiece canvass to create a complete recreation of life.

There are three essential characters. Anna Karenina who deserts her husband to live with her lover, Count Vronsky who is a dashing and colonel Anna falls for and Levin who some say is Tolstoy's autobiographical sketch in some ways.

This novel has several love stories, developed delightfully in beginning and then these give way to the ground realities of the world and society. In some sense, the novel is like those movies that show everything from birth to death, and hence the delightful childhood, or steamy romance of adulthood become just frames in passing imagery, where the whole is spectacular and full of everything.

Through Anna's and Vronsky's stories, set in Moscow and Petersburg, the life of Princes and Princesses comes live with associated gossip, glamor, balls, grand parties, dresses and fashion, and many characters appear and reappear to tell intertwined tales of several lifes. These lifes are of people with money or inheritances, they speak multiple languages, have servants and maids and valets to look after the mundane stuff, have enough time to dwell on questions of social justice, ethics and natural sciences through their eyes that judge from a distance. On the other hand, Levin is a rural nobleman, uncormfortable in the city. His life mixes with the toil of peasants who cut, mow, grow, reap, harvest, and thrash crops. He practically encounters the questions of faith in God, of social justice and enpowerment, of natural sciences but placed in the other world of his city relations and friends finds himself wanting with respect to articulating his views on anything and everything.

Anna is a complex character: a beautiful women split between multiple roles of mother, wife, sister, lover, social outcast and allows Tolstoy to present a multitude of beautifully created emotions through her. Levin fulfils the role of a thinker and doubter alike, of a "nice guys finish last" league gentleman, of a compelling person with principles that make him appear unmotivated or worldly inept to uninitiated. Vronsky is to begin with the "happy go lucky" charmers, and must in his lifetime discover how great love (to others wife) comes at great cost. Without disclosing the story too much, let me just say there are other important and completely developed characters, who have their pieces of life added to serve a grand buffet of possibilities.

As a novel that opens the window into life in Russia, this novel will remain an important masterpiece that can also be read for its splendid love stories, for discussions on ethics, politics, faith and morality and for patient reading spread over weeks. It is a classic, a meganovel, and needs time, respect, and patience; but reading a novel of this skill and magnitude is in my view, a delightful experience unmatched by reading dozens of easy read 100 page books we buy as bestsellers in bookstores everwhere. Commit to it, and experience the love, life, flora, fauna, streets, winds and tea in Russia in Tolstoy's masterly detail:)
3781074
I thoroughly enjoyed Robert K. Massie's biogrpahies of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexander, and the last imperial family, but I hadn't thought I would be interested in Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman as nothing I'd previously read or heard about her made a favorable impression.  (I might also have been hampered by a third-grade prejudice involving a classmate who wanted to be known as Catherine the Great!)  Like many prejudices, that particular one denied me the pleasure of reading this book earlier.

I don't know that I will ever be an admirer of Catherine, either as a woman or as an empress, but I certainly have a much greater understanding of her, both as a woman and as an empress, and of her contributions to Russia and Europe.  Like his other histories, Massie's biography of this German-born princess is thoroughly researched and engagingly written.  It is as pleasant to read as any novel, yet far more challenging to the mind than most novels . . . and some histories.  Massie is adept at drawing fully detailed portraits of his subjects and those closest to them, showing us both the strenghts and weakness that make a character wholly human instead of a legend from long ago.

Before reading this, I never truly understood how Catherine was able to ascend to the Russian throne.  I do now.  Nor did I truly understand why she was honored with "the great" attached to her name.  I do now, and Massie has convinced me that this epithet is deserved.  This is a great history, stretching from her birth to a mother who was disappointed with a daughter, through years of unconsummated marriage to a difficult man-child under the jealous eye of his imperial aunt, and into her long reign.  It truly is a portrait, not only of a woman who happened to become a great empress, but also of her reign, and of those closest to her.

I doubt if one can truly understand Russian history without learning what Massie has written about Catherine.  I visited an exhibit in Memphis, many years ago, based on her reign, and, while awed by the many beautiful objects, was left with no real understanding of this woman and what she meant to Russia.

I highly recommend this to readers who are interested in biography, history and/or Russia.
2760721
The Russian Revolution was certainly a bloody affair.  Fear and chaos abounded.  It turned an entire nation upside down. And in the center of it all was the brutal assignation of the Tsar and his family.  A murder surrounded in a mystery, which became legendary.  Did the daughter of the Russian royal family survive?

Glenn Meades' latest novel, The Romanov Conspiracy hits the ground running with a gritty and harrowing account of an attempted rescue of the Tsar and his family during the final days of the Russian revolution.

In the center of the story are Uri Andrev and Leonid Yakov.  Friends since childhood, they find themselves on opposite sides of the revolution.  Bitterness and anger rooted in betrayal and fueled by events spinning wildly out of control cause both men to seek to undo the other.  But even war can't totally unravel the cords of deep friendship Uri and Leonid had woven over a lifetime.

Paramount to the plot is the Romanov family - the Tsar, his wife and children - including the willful Anastasia, held captive by Lenin's men and soon to be murdered.  But help is coming in the form of a headstrong Irish gunner runner, Lydia Ryan, and Joe Boyle, a man of mystery who has been on more than one death defying mission.  Together with Uri Andrev they infiltrate Russia, making their way through the chaotic blood-soaked countryside, hoping to free the imprisoned Tsar and his family before it's too late.

Meades' novel is taut, historically rich, and replete with complex characters.  It will quickly draw you into the horrifying upheaval that was the Russian Revolution and leave you breathless.

However, as an author known well to the Christian market, Meade does promote, albeit subtlety, the worldview that in the midst of heartache and turmoil it's okay to "love the one you're with".  In The Romanov Conspiracy two of the characters find solace in the arms of someone other than their spouse.  The underlying feeling being that God understands.  That, for me, made a stellar novel less great.

A courtesy copy of The Romanov Conspiracy received from Howard Books in exchange for an honest review.
2639465
I very rarely give 5 stars for anything - well this is a wonderful exception! What a fascinating, marvelous read! An unrepentant aristocrat is put on 'house arrest' at age 29, sentenced to live within the walls of the luxury hotel in Moscow he calls home. But, he must give up his extravagant suite of rooms and live in a small room above the hotel belfry. Thus begins the life and times of this 'Former Person' of Russia, Count Rostov. He takes his house arrest in stride, finding ways to continue living comfortably and with grace. When he is befriended by a 10-year-old girl in the hotel, his life takes on more color and activity - even adventure. She is precocious, inquisitive, and very intelligent. Over the years, he continues being a fixture in the hotel, keeping company with foreigners, writers, politicians, and intellectuals. As the world (and the USSR) changes, he views history from the windows and balconies of the hotel. The book is fun to read, has a great pace, and (delightfully) each chapter heading begins with the letter 'a'. Brilliantly written, I hated for the story to end. Ah, but the end! A perfect ending, all is well with the world, and Count Rostov (in his 60s) has made his mark. Loved the book. Can't say enough about it!
4144543
His name is Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, recipient of the Order Of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt.  He left Russia as a young man after an incident with an officer who broke his sister's heart.  He returned with the fall of the Tsar to arrange the safe passage of his grandmother out of the country.  Now in 1922, he has been called to account by a government committee for the crime of authoring a politically questionable poem.  The outcome is house arrest at the Metropole, the famous hotel where he is currently living in an opulent suite.

And there he remains.  The months go by, then the years and soon the decades.  A young man of twenty-two, he comes to manhood within the confines of the hotel and lives his adult life there.  But his early upbringing as a gentleman serves him well.  He makes friends with various staff members.  He has routines that help to define his days.  He makes surprising new friendships that last over the years and that bring love and laughter into his life.  Through his constrained life, the reader sees the constraints that define Russia during the Communist era and the privations that the average person endures.

Amor Towles has created a memorable character whose life serves as an example to us all.  His grace and joy in life is contagious and his ability to never let his circumstances define his essential core is endearing.  The reader is left with the impression that this is a man who anyone would be thrilled to know and to spend time with.  As the last page is turned, the reader is left uplifted and satisfied with the story and how things turn out for Rostov.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.
3692700
143 pages of this book consist of wonderfully evocative photographs, collected by Tatiana Browning, of all sections of Russian society in the period between 1894 and 1914.  And then there are 40 pages of very readable text by Kyril Fitzlyon, born Kyril Zinoviev, whose family fled Russia in 1917 when he was seven years old and who changed his name when he was called up into the British Army at the beginning of the Second World War.

This short text is extraordinarily rich in detail about Russian society, some of which I had never come across before.  Fitzlyon (whose father had been a Marshal of the Nobility and whose mother had been a  Maid of Honour to the Tsarina Alexandra) gives us some lovely illustrative details about the Court of the Tsar.

And he shows, among other things, how the Russian hereditary nobles (dvoryanye) were a vast Estate (not a class): some were very rich - though nothing like as rich as the great noble families in England - while some were quite poor and worked in the fields alongside their peasants.  It was fairly easy to become a noble (knyaz - a word invariably translated as Prince, with the misleading suggestion that its holders were always members of the royal family).  The title was bestowed to everyone beyond a certain rank in the armed forces or the civil service.  Such titles were passed on not only to the eldest son, but to every member of the family.  Likewise  if one was a member of the Estate of town-dwellers (mestchanye), ones descendants would also belong to that Estate even if these worked on the land alongside of peasants who were members of the peasant Estate (krestyanye).  Conversely many peasants who migrated to the towns and became industrial workers were still called as peasants and they would often return to their villages for harvest time - just as many peasants would seek work in the town during the winter, and there are fascinating details about their accommodation and way of life during that season, as well as of the interiors of a typical peasants house (izba) and of their clothing.

At the top of the Merchant Estate were the increasingly powerful great industrialists, ruthless employers, but some of them, relying on their own tastes and not on the advice of professional experts,  patrons of modern art and of the theatre.  I was astonished to read that at least two of these, Savva Morozov and Viktor Tikhomirov, were Marxists and lavishly subsidized Lenins Bolshevik Party.

Next there is fine description of Russias religious life, of the character of the clergy (the Established Church , of the Old Believers, and of other sects, some with very quaint beliefs and practices).

Fitzlyon highlights the contrast between the enormous influence of the Jewish lite  in the cultural and economic sphere on the one hand and the persecution, oppression and misery suffered by the great mass of the Jewish people.

Next Fitzlyon highlights the some 200 other ethnic groups in the Russian Empire, all with their own cultures and religions (Muslim, Buddhist, pagan).  Some four million Russian peasants, short of land,  had voluntarily embraced the hardship of settling in Siberia.

Finally there is a sections on the great expansion of education during this period and one on the arts which were every bit as adventurous as they were in France and in Germany.  It drives home at the end of this text the point that was also made at the beginning: sections of the ruling class may have been very conservative and even reactionary; parts of the Russian Empire were still very backward;  but during this period there was an enormous amount of progress and innovation, a rapid modernization, a huge increase in every kind of economic activity.
2827176
Was the Russian October Revolution a historical necessity? Was it the uprising of a people, the inevitable result of political and social development? Was Lenin really an unerring genius and Tsar Nicolas II a cruel autocrat? These are some of the questions Elisabeth Heresch, an Austrian historian, is trying to answer based on her research in the intl archives and on the accounts of the witnesses, survivors of those events that drastically effected the history of Russia.
The book is a priceless collection of testimonies of witnesses and partakers of the 1915-1920th events in Russia. Generals, cadets, soldiers and Cossacks of the White Army (who fought against Bolsheviks), peasants, landowners, priests, workers, capitalists, teachers, and prisoners of the WWI, the members of the dismissed lawful Russian government and Dukes, and Tsar Nicolas II, himself, are speaking to us and looking from the unique photos. They tell us a horrifying story how international conspiracies hand in hand with Bolsheviks brought about a coup called since then the Russian Revolution. It tells how Alexander Parvus, a Russian-Jewish revolutionary in exile, who made millions on the WWI while sitting in Constantinople, developed a careful plan for the coup and sold it to German militarists. The plan was immediately adopted and funded to organize the pro-Bolshevik propaganda, to provide weapons and ammunition, and to support the newly-established Bolshevik regime during the Civil War. Lenin, as a one of the leading theorists of the revolution abroad, spell-bound by Marxism as a theory of salvation, got an offer to head the coup. And eventually he accepted it, promising in return to supply Germany with gold, ore, steel, etc., and most importantly, to organize anti-war propaganda in Russia in order to make peace under conditions beneficial to Germans.
The international Bolsheviks led by Lenin (cynical fanatic who followed the philosophy Ends justify means), supported by soldiers demoralized by the propaganda, overthrew all lawful governing institutions, slaughtering population loyal to the Tsar, as well as Tsar himself and his family. The resistance forces, namely the White Army, united around the idea of unified Russia with new constitutions and political and economic reforms, failed to withstand the pressure of international Bolsheviks funded from abroad. Based on witness accounts Lenin is portrayed as a German agent, traitor whose file was ready to be transferred to court.
The historical narrative provided by the author is organically interwoven with the testimonies of the witnesses, presents a non-fiction mystery easy to read even for those who usually not cast their sight toward books on history.
70907
Gogol, guys. Read Gogol. Very easy reading, hilarious, calm humour combined with extreme drama. I guess he wrote what he saw and heard in Russia at that time, hundred years ago. Totally awesomeness, love.
2455046
Sam Eastland's "Eye of the Red Tsar" builds on many readers' continuing fascination with Russia's last Tsar and a family that met the most horrible of consquences as the history of Russia underwent another violent change.  To this day, what happened to Tsar Nicholas, his wife and children makes for riveting storytelling, this time in the hands of an author who has created Pekkala, a man so close to the Tsar in life that he was almost an extension of Russia's ruler, a man who, as everything changed for this family he protected, also endured years of grueling imprisonment and punishment at the hands of the new government.  Released to help with the location, but more the identification,of the family's bodies, Pekkala becomes part of a story that leads to an ending promising more of this character, now invited, by Stalin himself, to become part of Russia's government.  Knowing what we do of the cruelty of Stalin, one can only wonder what the next story will reveal.  In the meantime, immerse yourseslf in a story that moves back and forth between the end of the Tsar's rule and Pekkala's release from a Siberian prison almost ten years later.  You won't be disappointed.