How did one family turn a war-ruined principality into the world’s greatest empire? And how did they lose it all? This is the intimate story of twenty tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire-building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin, to Bismarck, Lincoln, Queen Victoria and Lenin.

    Filled with chilling tales of looted palaces and burning estates, of desperate flights in the night from marauding peasants and Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile, and execution, it is the story of how a centuries’-old elite, famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar and Empire, and its promotion of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the rest of old Russia.Yet Former People is also a story of survival and accommodation, of how many of the tsarist ruling class—so-called “former people” and “class enemies”—overcame the psychological wounds inflicted by the loss of their world and decades of repression as they struggled to find a place for themselves and their families in the new, hostile order of the Soviet Union. Chronicling the fate of two great aristocratic families—the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns—the book reveals how even in the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on. Told with sensitivity and nuance by acclaimed historian Douglas Smith, Former People is the dramatic portrait of two of Russia’s most powerful aristocratic families, and a sweeping account of their homeland in violent transition.

     Its glittering Tsars and Tsarinas were autocratic despots, who between them embraced all the vices (and too few of the virtues) of absolute rulers. Their name has become a byword for excess, avarice and cruelty, they have aroused intrigue and horror in equal measure. Virginia Cowles offers a portrait gallery of the outstanding members of this incredible family — from Alexis (a Tartar in his wrath) and Peter the Great (a terrifying giant) to the nymphomaniac Catherine and the doomed Nicholas II, last of the Tsars. Their domination of Russia was brought to an end in March 1917, as a result of the February Revolution. Of the 65 family members, 18 were killed by the Bolsheviks and the remaining 47 were exiled abroad. Delving behind the mass of obscure and unfamiliar historical detail, she reveals the characters and personal ties behind these strange, and often daunting, figures. She looks beyond what is written about them in the history books and explores how their family lives and secrets affected the entirety of Russia and its many citizens. ‘Recounted at great speed, and with splendid life, vigour and readability’ – Antonia Fraser, Evening Standard Virginia Spencer Cowles OBE was a noted American journalist, biographer, and travel writer. During her long career, Cowles went from covering fashion, to covering the Spanish Civil War, the turbulent period in Europe leading up to World War II, and the entire war. After the war, she published a number of critically acclaimed biographies of historical figures. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    Ousted from the imperial palace when the Bolsheviks seize control of the government, Anastasia and her family are exiled to Siberia. But even while the rebels debate the family's future with agonizing slowness and the threat to their lives grows more menacing, romance quietly blooms between Anastasia and Sasha, a sympathetic young guard she has known since childhood. But will the strength of their love be enough to save Anastasia from a violent death?Inspired by the mysteries that have long surrounded the last days of the Romanov family, Susanne Dunlap's new novel is a haunting vision of the life-and love story-of Russia's last princess.

    A German princess who married a decadent and lazy Russian prince, Catherine mobilized support amongst the Russian nobles, playing off of her husband's increasing corruption and abuse of power. She then staged a coup that ended with him being strangled with his own scarf in the halls of the palace, and she being crowned the Empress of Russia.Intelligent and determined, Catherine modeled herself off of her grandfather in-law, Peter the Great, and sought to further modernize and westernize Russia. She believed that the best way to do this was through a ravenous acquisition of art, which Catherine often used as a form of diplomacy with other powers throughout Europe. She was a self-proclaimed "glutton for art" and she would be responsible for the creation of the Hermitage, one of the largest museums in the world, second only to the Louvre. Catherine also spearheaded the further expansion of St. Petersburg, and the magnificent architectural wonder the city became is largely her doing. There are few women in history more fascinating than Catherine the Great, and for the first time, Susan Jaques brings her to life through the prism of art.

    A Russian refugee, Anastasia Romanov bears an extraordinary resemblance to the princess of the same name, who was rumored to have survived the brutal murder of her family at the hands of Bolshevik revolutionaries. The fate of the youngest daughter of the last Russian Czar has become one of the most talked-about mysteries of the time. But Michael's Anastasia is suffering from amnesia and remembers little of her life before Shanghai. Unraveling the mystery of Anastasia's identity and past takes them both from the streets of Shanghai to the decadence of pre-war Berlin and London, from Bolshevik Russia to New York just before the Wall Street crash. Michael is the only man who has ever helped Anastasia without wanting something in return - but can she give up the chance to be a princess for true love?

    This work paints a vivid picture of the entire Romanov family and illustrates exactly what it contributed to the creation of Russia, bringing the characters of the tsars and their family to life.

    A missing treasure. One woman holds the key.Natalie Brandon believes the rumors that Nicholas II, last tsar of Russia, left behind a secret bank account to provide for his family in exile. But getting someone to believe her is harder than finding the account itself. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Natalie is tormented by a recurring hallucination, the voice of an angel named Belial. Even her sister, a Russian history professor, won't take her claim seriously...until a blond, blue-eyed Russian spy kidnaps Natalie, claiming she's the only one who can lead him to the treasure.But Constantine Dashkov isn't the only one after the missing millions. The Russian prime minister, Maxim Starinov, will do anything to get the money for himself. Natalie and Constantine must outrun Starinov's death squad and track the treasure from San Francisco to Moscow to London. The hunt draws in Natalie's sister, Constantine's partner, and a loyal Russian family whose only mission is to guard the Romanovs' secret.With nothing more than Natalie's ghostly intuition to guide them, the pair must fight for their lives in a race to protect the tsar's legacy from a greedy despot. Blending suspense, romance, and espionage, The Romanov Legacy is an action-packed thriller that takes an unlikely heroine on one of the world's greatest treasure hunts.At the end of the story, keep reading for a preview of the forthcoming prequel, The Dante Deception.

    Wracked by boundary disputes, political intrigue, myriad wars and shifting centers of power, Russia was maintained throughout by a ruling elite as diverse as the lands they governed. The story of these rulers, told wit clarity and style in Czars, is in many ways the story of Russia itself.From the birth of the Kievan state in the second half of the ninth century under the Varangian Oleg to the murder of Czar Nicholas II and his family in 1918, authors Duffy and Ricci trace the long and twisted line of czarist rule in Russia, offering many insights on the uses and abuses of absolute power, as well as a glimpse at world history through the eyes of those who made it.Key players includes: Saint Olga, appointed regent in 945, and the first of several strong czarinas Ivan I, prince of Moscovy 1328-1341, who centralized power in Moscow Boris Godunov, Fedor II, Dmitri the Impostor, Basil IV, Dmitri and Ladislaus of Poland, the six czars who ruled, sometimes simultaneously, during the aptly named Time of Troubles, 1598-1612 Peter the Great, perhaps Russia's most progressive ruler Catherine the Great, who led a successful revolt against her husband, Czar Peter III, to become the fourth woman monarch of Russia Seventeen portraits of czars through the ages, several historical maps, genealogical charts, a thorough bibliography and a detailed index bring the reader as close to Russia's erstwhile monarchy as one would want to get. Ideal for students, historians and general readers from serf to sovereign, Czars is a vital new page in the literature of Russian history.

    A lifetime ago, she was the vain, ambitious, impossibly charming prima ballerina assoluta of the tsar’s Russian Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg. Now, as she looks back on her tumultuous life, she can still recall every slight she ever suffered, every conquest she ever made.Kschessinka’s riveting storytelling soon thrusts us into a world lost to time: that great intersection of the Russian court and the Russian theater. Before the revolution, Kschessinska dominated that world as the greatest dancer of her age. At seventeen, her crisp, scything technique made her a star. So did her romance with the tsarevich Nicholas Romanov, soon to be Nicholas II. It was customary for grand dukes and sons of tsars to draw their mistresses from the ranks of the ballet, but it was not customary for them to fall in love.The affair could not endure: when Nicholas ascended to the throne as tsar, he was forced to give up his mistress, and Kschessinska turned for consolation to his cousins, two grand dukes with whom she formed an infamous ménage à trois. But when Nicholas’s marriage to Alexandra wavered after she produced girl after girl, he came once again to visit his Little K. As the tsar’s empire—one that once made up a third of the world—began its fatal crumble, Kschessinka’s devotion to the imperial family would be tested in ways she could never have foreseen.In Adrienne Sharp’s magnificently imagined novel, the last days of the three-hundred-year-old Romanov empire are relived. Through Kschessinska’s memories of her own triumphs and defeats, we witness the stories that changed history: the seething beginnings of revolution, the blindness of the doomed court, the end of a grand, decadent way of life that belonged to the nineteenth century. Based on fact, The True Memoirs of Little K is historical fiction as it’s meant to be written: passionately eventful, crammed with authentic detail, and alive with emotions that resonate still.

    Now, on the hundredth anniversary of that revolution, Robert Service, the eminent historian of Russia, examines Nicholas's life and thought from the months before his momentous abdication to his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918.The story has been told many times, but Service's deep understanding of the period and his forensic examination of previously untapped sources, including the Tsar's diaries and recorded conversations, as well as the testimonies of the official inquiry, shed remarkable new light on his troubled reign, also revealing the kind of Russia that Nicholas wanted to emerge from the Great War.The Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political ferment in Russia that followed the February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet socialist republic.

    

    Petersburg, a failed uprising ignited a process that would, one red October, finally sweep the autocracy away. The Shadow of the Winter Palace recounts an extraordinary century of Russian history, a politically tempestuous time that was also a Golden Age of intellectual and artistic achievement -- the century of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. A master stylist and a distinguished historian, Edward Crankshaw limns dazzling portraits of the czars, the revolutionaries, and a host of other unforgettable characters -- and provides a riveting, sweeping history "jam-packed with information about the past and implications for the present"(Atlantic Monthly).

    The haunting story of a forbidden love between the agent of the British King and the daughter of the Imperial Czar.

    Its reign ended with the execution of Nicholas II and Alexandra in the early 20th century. Noted Russian scholar W. Bruce Lincoln has portrayed the achievement, significance and high drama of the Dynasty as no previous book has done. His use of rare archival materials has allowed him to present a portrait of the Romanovs based on their own writings and those of the persons who knew them.PrefaceAcknowledgmentsA Note on Russian Names and DatesPrologueMuscovite beginnings (1613-1689)Tsars and tsarinas In the eye of the storm The politics of Muscovy The rise of an empire (1689-1796) Eighteenth-century emperors & empresses An imperial city in the makingFrom debauchery to philosophy Imperial aspirations Empire triumphant (1796-1894) The imperial dynasty The new faces of St. PetersburgFrom golden age to iron ageThe colossus of the north The last emperor (1894-1917) Nicky and Sunny: the last Romanovs The approach of disaster Days of war and revolution The last days of the RomanovsNotes and ReferencesWorks CitedIndex