Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs
book one in the bestselling series
“Quite simply, stunning. . . . Chilling and poignant, this is how history books should be written.”
ALISON WEIR
Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs
This is the story of those murders, which ended 300 years of Romanov rule and set their stamp on an era of state-orchestrated terror and brutal repression.
Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs counts down to the last , tense hours of the family’s lives, stripping away the over-romanticised versions of previous accounts. The story focuses on the family inside the Ipatiev House, capturing the oppressive atmosphere and the dynamics of a group – the Romanovs, their servants and guards – thrown together by extraordinary events.
Marshalling overlooked evidence from key witnesses such as the British consul to Ekaterinburg Sir Thomas Preston, British and American travellers in Siberia and the now-forgotten American journalist Herman Bernstein, Helen Rappaport gives a brilliant account of the political forces swirling through the remote Urals town. She conveys the tension of the watching world: the Kaiser of Germany and George V, King of England – both, like Alexandra, grandchildren of Queen Victoria – their nations locked in combat as the first world war drew to its bitter end. And she draws on recent releases from the Russian archives to challenge the view that the deaths were a unilateral act by a maverick group of the Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks, identifying a chain of command that stretches directly, she believes, to Moscow – and to Lenin himself.
Telling the story in a compellingly new and dramatic way, Ekaterinburg brings those final tragic days vividly alive against the backdrop of Russia in turmoil, on the brink of a devastating civil war.
The National Geographic Mystery Files on the Romanovs
The Murder of the Romanovs in Ekaterinburg, July 1918
The Romanovs’ Last Days:
Here is an extraordinary piece of footage shot in Ekaterinburg only five months after the Romanovs were murdered. It was filmed by members of the US Signal Corps – Captain Howard Kingsmore and Private Phil Tannamur – who entered Ekaterinburg with forces of the Allied Intervention in December 1918. The original is in the National Archives in Washington.
Reviews
“As shocking and immediate as a thriller… [a] gripping read.”
People magazine
“That perfect but rare blend of history, sense of place, human tragedy, drama and atmosphere”
Susan Hill
“Helen Rappaport brilliantly assembles the intricacies of the story in untroubling prose with some colourful re-imaginings to make this account utterly compelling.”
DAILY TELEGRAPH
“Author Rappaport, a talented British writer of narrative history, telescopes the post-abdication story of the Romanovs into the two weeks preceding their deaths, …[Rappaport] has produced an emotionally powerful work of history. ”
Booklist
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