Dispatches from Home – The First and the Last: TSAR – THE LOST WORLD OF NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA.

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This book, by author Peter Kurth, begins thusly: “The morning of March 6, 1913, was cloudy in St. Petersburg—laden would be a better word to describe the heavy skies, the mist, the torrent of rain, and occasional roll of thunder that broke over the city on what was meant to be a day of national rejoicing, the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty.”

Mr. Kurth’s book is a stunning glimpse into the vanished world of Nicholas, Alexandra, and their five children. From the gilded, art and antique-filled palaces of the dynasty to the claustrophobic chaos of the room in which the royal family was murdered, and finally, the royal family’s exhumation from a muddy grave, this book is a sumptuous cornucopia filled with evocative narrative and a wealth of visual images arranged with loving care.

The book ends with these words: “The historian, Richard Pipes, in his monumental account, ‘The Russian Revolution,’ cites the murder of the Romanovs in July 1918 as the moment when history made a turn toward genocide, when ‘millions of nameless beings’ were placed on a list of expendables and the world entered ‘an entirely new moral realm.’ That realm is with us still. In a world grown accustomed, even inured, to the slaughter of innocents, these seven faces and this fateful room might serve as epigraphs for all the horrors the twentieth century would hold in store.”

(Originally published September 1, 2021)

The Tsar and his children.
The Royal Family – Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei.
The Tsar’s children at an early age.
Artist rendering of the murder room in the House of Special Purpose.
Photograph of the actual room where the Royal Family, along with their doctor and a few loyal servants, were murdered. Blood is on the floor, and the back wall is punctured by the force of the bullets.