The four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II were murdered almost by accident. "I will never be the Marat of the Russian revolution," pledged the prime minister, Alexander Kerensky, after the February revolution in 1917. He tried to find the family refuge outside Russia (Britain's George V couldn't help, although Nicholas's wife, Alexandra, was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria) and then sent them to Siberia hoping that the Russian populace would forget about them. But revolutions demand their victims. The entire family was moved to Ekaterinburg and shot. Helen Rappaport has already written about the Romanovs' terrifying final weeks in prison. Now she moves from nightmare to fairytale, placing the four beautiful grand duchesses centre stage for the first time.
What is most surprising in this story is quite how unsuited the family is to power. They all live chiefly for each other. Alexandra finds the business of state "a horrid bore" that keeps her husband away from her. Nicholas comes home for the children's bathtime every night and records episodes of teething and weaning in his diary. When Nicholas abdicates, his first thought is that now he can "fulfil my life's desire to have a farm, somewhere in England".
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