The Fate of the Romanovs
(with Penny Wilson) 2003
I had long wanted to
write something about the murder of the Romanovs and
the investigation into
their deaths, and had even begun such a work in the
late 1990s only to set it
aside. Then, when I met Penny Wilson and
discovered that she, too, had
embarked on her own project about the death of
the Imperial Family, it seemed
a good idea to combine our interests and
research into a single work. Thus
was The Fate of the Romanovs born.
As in my biography of the Duchess of Windsor, an important
factor in
composing the book was an attempt to strip away decades of lore
and accepted
history based on little more than gossip and error. Both "The
Duchess of
Windsor" and "The Fate of the Romanovs" thus in some ways
countered what had
come before, investigating rumor and revealing something
of the truth that
had been lost for so many years. I am especially proud that we were
able to strip away so many of the myths and legends surrounding the last days
and murder of the Romanovs; to show that the Imperial family were not
brutalized
by their guards; and to present a number of previously unknown and
unpublished
memoirs and testimonies from those involved in the drama,
including several new
eyewitness accounts of the execution. At the same
time, we strove to present a
comprehensive a portrait as possible of the
investigations, of the discovery of the Koptyaki
grave, of the contentious
process of the identification of the imperial
remains, and of their ultimate
disposition and the contradictory legacy of
Nicholas II.
The Fate of the Romanovs: plaques in the Fortress of Peter and Paul conmemorate
the family, including those members whose bones were disputed or unfound at the time
of internment
At the time it was
written, it seemed reasonable to postulate
the possibility that two corpses,
those of Tsesarevich Alexei and Grand
Duchess Anastasia, had indeed gone
missing by the time Yurovsky's men
reached the Four Brothers Mine, given that
intensive searches in the woods
for the site of the remains of the missing
two had, after eleven years,
brought no results.
The Fate of the
Romanovs still stands, I think, as a monumental achievement,
and I happily
stand by its contents despite the furor that erupted amongst
certain Romanov
devotees after publication who, unable to accept that the
Imperial Family
were all too human, attempted to attack the book on any and
all grounds.
That such unreasoned and obsessive attacks continue to this day
simply
proves, as far as I am concerned, that the story we told hit a bit
too close
to home for some people who are unable to let go of their romantic,
nationalistic, and sentimental delusions.
Gilded Prism: The Konstantinovichii Grand Dukes
(with Penny Wilson) 2006
This little book had its origin in the last issue of Atlantis
Magazine,
which
contained articles by Penny Wilson, Janet Ashton, and myself exploring the
varied lives of Grand Duke Konstantin
Nikolaievich and his descendants.
Arturo Beeche, publisher of the European
Royal History Journal, asked Penny Wilson
and me if we would be willing to add some new
material to our articles and expand
the story to book-length. While most certainly a
specialty publication dedicated to a
junior branch of the Romanov Family, it
still remains the only work dedicated to the
Konstantinovichii yet published
in English. The goal was not to attempt any kind of
comprehensive chronicle
of the family, but rather to provide a good general introduction
and
present some pieces of information that might not be known.
Konstantin's descendants: the controversial Nikolai as a child with his sisters Olga and Vera
The most
interesting aspect of both the magazine issue and of the book
became the
story of Henrietta Blackford. Born to a very prominent minister
in
Philadelphia in the middle of the 19th Century, she went from being
the
daughter of a respected clergyman to America's first real courtesan,
leaving
a trail of havoc in her wake before threat of arrest forced her to
flee to
Europe. In Russia, she took up with the unstable Grand Duke
Nicholas
Konstantinovich and was at the center of the scandal over his theft
of his
mother's jewels. We were fortunate enough to acquire a very rare copy
of
Henrietta's memoirs, written under her pseudonym of "Fanny Lear", that
had
belonged to her and contained her own notes, and also to come in
to
possession of some 200 unpublished love letters she exchanged with the
Grand
Duke. A truly fascinating woman of immense contradictions,
Henrietta's
story may yet become another project at some future date.
c.
Greg King 2008
