russia

Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia was the second of four daughters of Tsar Nicholas II. Tatiana was acknowledged for her beauty, poise, elegance, and dignity. Her diaries show a remarkably down-to-earth and humorous young woman, full of life and compassion. She was a detail-oriented and observant participant in some of the most historical events of the twentieth century.

The four Romanov sisters were the Princess Dianas of their day. They were the most photographed and the most talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. Over the years their tragic end has overshadowed their true selves. The contents of this book, taken from diaries and letters written to their friends and family, show that the girls were intelligent, sensitive, and perceptive witnesses to the dark turmoil within their immediate family and the ominous approach of the Russian Revolution.

Descended from an ancient Lithuanian family, the author's forebears were princes in their native Lithuania. Born in what is now Belarus, his family was ousted in 1939 as the Germans and Russians carved up Poland, and the area round it, between them. His family, along with thousands of others, was deported to Soviet Siberia to work and die. Before all hope was gone, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and Stalin needed help wherever he could get it. An army of Polish ex-prisoners, and part of the deported male civilian Polish population, fought the Germans. The rest of the deported civilians had to fend for themselves and Michal's mother and her children set off on a second grueling journey that would eventually take them to England.

Olga, the oldest daughter of the last Russian Tsar, Nicolas II, kept a diary from the time she was ten, in 1905, until March 1917, when her father abdicated from the Russian throne. Olga's diaries are held at the State Archives of the Russian Federation in Moscow. Her diaries from the World War I era have never been translated until this volume.

The twentieth century was the most violent in recorded history. One hundred million people died during the century's wars and a quarter of a billion people were murdered by their own governments.