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The Romanovs
Diane_Rob
Posts: 1,261 Forum Member
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Russian Royal family-always interested me, ever since I saw the movie 'Anastasia' as a kid ^_^ (don't laugh, it got me interested in the real deal in later life anyway 
).
Their story is so interesting and ultimately quite tragic, wondered if any other History nerds like myself are interested in their story?
I really think the makers of 'the tudors' and 'the borgias' should do a Romanov series now, it'd be brilliant!
).Their story is so interesting and ultimately quite tragic, wondered if any other History nerds like myself are interested in their story?
I really think the makers of 'the tudors' and 'the borgias' should do a Romanov series now, it'd be brilliant!
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So, history wouldn't be at the foremost of such a programme then?
It is an interesting story though, and the recent BBC documentaries about the Royal Cousins was very good.
Yeah - it was kinda tragic that Nicholas totally believed in the autocratic system with the zsar having great political power yet he himself hated holding that role and was incredibly crap at it. As a constitutional monarch he probably would have been great.. but instead it all ended in disaster.
One of the best I've seen on the BBC for a long time.
Robert K. Massie's book on them is about the best, and most accurate, but the final bit after they are all dead, has proved to be inaccurate in light of most of their bodies being found.
In reference to my hat thread, I like the bowler hat that Tsar Nicholas is wearing in this group photo (second on the left, no.5)
....... there is a good movie with tom baker as rasputin. occasionally on telly. no doubt will crop up on bbc 2 as part of the great war centenary .......
On another note, I love the Anastasia movie too! I'm assuming you mean the cartoon one with all the gorgeous songs?
I also think the autocratic rule in Russia has not really changed - Putin is very much in the tradition of the Tsar, as were Stalin and Brezhnev.. I suppose it's unrealistic to expect that centuries of autocratic political culture can be changed overnight by democracy.
Care to elaborate on this new theory ?
Rasputin's influence on the Romanov family has been much exaggerated.
No chance of a restoration though. The annihilation of the Tsar and his immediate family and many of the Grand Dukes mean that the current claimants are rather tenuous pretenders, and no one left surviving who was born pre-revolution.
I am planning to read some books on them too. The new one out ('Nicholas & Alexander') apparently is quite heavy reading and quite long, so I don't know whether to go for something a little shorter first because I'm a newcomer
Apparently HBO are making a mini-series about Rasputin and showing him in a GOOD light (not a villain etc as he's somehow become).
Wasn't it that Rasputin was the only one who could give the little lad some relief when he was in pain? I have no idea how he did it but it certainly meant that Rasputin had great power over the Tzarin who always looked to him with desperation to help her son. Problem was that Rasputin was a profligate and drunk as well as apparently whoremonger. People were well aware of that and could simply not understand what his influence was with the Tzarin. The Tzarevitch's illness was kept from the public, so outwardly there seemed to be no explanation as to why this villain Rasputin was tolerated at court. There were even rumours that he and Alexandra were lovers.
Of course this business was not the reason for the downfall of the Tzar, but it certainly added fire to the flames of revolution and made Alexandra even more hated than she already was.
Just had a look on wikipedia and in 1996 there was a HBO film called 'Rasputin - dark servant of destiny' starring Ian Mckellen and Alan Rickman, however it's going for £39.99 on amazon! And bits are on YouTube but I hate watching it all cut up. Looks pretty good though.
.... marx expected world communist revolution to start in germany. which it very nearly did except for teddy roosevelts intervention .....
Without Stalin and Communism it's highly likely that Hitler would've won World War Two.
If you want to erase someone from history for the good of all then it's probably Karl Marx. Without him it's doubtful that Hitler would ever have gained power in Germany or been given such an easy ride by England, France and the USA. Without Marx we would've had no World War Two, no vile Chairman Mao, no Vietnam or Korean Wars.
Communism has been at the root of the most enormous amount of evil.
The lottery of genetics meant that her son Edward VII didn't have it, and the daughters & granddaughters who were carriers married into other royalty and affected them instead. Thus sparing the British royal family.
That was fake. ;-)
DNA analysis showed it to be a preserved sea cucumber.
But if WW1 hadn't occurred, most likely the Romanovs, Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs would have survived. Hitler would have died in obscurity as a frustrated failed artist, and Lenin and Stalin would have been sent to the Siberian gulags by the Tsarist secret police :cool:
The chief cause for Mao's rise to power was Western & Japanese encroachment on China resulting in the fall of the Qing dynasty.
The way the people were treated at that time was pretty tragic, which is why they rose up.
All these monarchy stories play down the plight of the workers who the royals live off.
It doesn't actually look normal but then again who is normal?:)