The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias
by W. Bruce Lincoln

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Book Reviews of The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias

Book Review: Brian Wells, Esquire, reviews "The Romanovs"
Summary: 5 Stars

Early on, in their history, the inhabitants of this flat plain learned that a strong cntral authority was their only defense against foregn invasion and plunder. The establishment of Tsar of all the Russias was, therefore, an inevitable result of the geography of the location of the Russian people. If the diverse peoples of the Russian plain were to survive at all, they needed a strong autocratic authority to hold them together against the storms of military invasion. Consequently, in a very real way, the emmense authority that developed around the position of Tsar grew up out of the soil of the Russian plain.

If viewed in this light, many puzzling elements of Russian life can be better understood. The reason for their xenophobic reactions to outsiders and their servile attitude toward authority can all be drawn into sharper focus. No longer need we be reduced into racial stereotyping the Russian people as irresponsible children unready to accept the resposibilties of democratic government or as superstitious paranoids, frightened of any change. Their reactions to the world and acceptance of autocratic authority is the merely natural reaction of any people or culture who may have been similarly situated on a flat indefensible plain any where in the world.

Bruce Lincoln writes cogently about the sweeping history of the entire Romanov Dynasty. To be sure the autocratic rule of the Tsar did not begin with the crowning of Michael Romanov in 1613. The emergence and growth of the Principality of Moscow dating from 1300 had been accompanied by extremely autocratic rule. Indeed Ivan IV (called the Terrible) was the first prince of Moscow to take on the title of "Tsar of all the Russias" in 1547. However, when Ivan IV died without heirs in 1584, Russia entered into a 29 year peiod of time called "Time of Troubles" during which many boyer families competed for power. What resulted was a power vaccuum which allowed chaos, peasant revolts and suffering to reign at home and which invited foreign invasion from abroad. Only in 1613 did the boyers agree to settle on a single person for Tsar and elected Michael Romanov to that position.

From that point on the Russia began a rise to the position of world power that lasted until the time of Napoleon. Bruce Lincoln weaves an interesting tale as he follows the coarse of the Romanov Dynasty through the glory years of the Russian nation through the reigns of Michael, (reigned 1613-1645), his son, Alexis, (reigned 1645-1676) and grandson Peter the Great (reigned 1682- 1725)and on to the reigns of Peter's Tsarina Catherine I, (reigned 1725-1727), Peter and Catherine's daughter-in-law, Anne (reigned 1730-1740) and daughter Elizabeth (reigned 1741-1762). On to the reigns of Catherine the Great, (1762-1796), her grandsons, Alexander I, (1801-1825) and Nicholas I, (1825-1855).

With Nicholas I, Imperial Russia reached its apogee. The Decemberist Movement of 1825, the Crimean War (1853-1856) and the assassination of Nicholas I's son, Alexander II in 1881, all signalled the decline of the Russian Empire. The position of Tsar had lost its dynamism from Nicholas I on the Tsars were on the defensive, desperately attempting retain power rather than extend imperial influence. From the time of Nicholas I until the Revolution of 1917, the Tsars became more and more alienated from the real world and were thus gradually weakened until they were ripe to be overthrown. The bloodless Revolution of 1917 occurred as easily as a person kicking in a rotten door which fell off its hinges at the slightest impact.

The sweep of this book is grand, yet Bruce Lincoln's style of writing the holds the reader interest as if it were a novel.

Summary of The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias

Eastern Books

• Subjects > History > Europe > Eastern
• Russia