The Royal Diaries: Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess, Russia, 1914

by Carolyn Meyer

Hardcover, 2000

Status

Check shelf

Call number

J 92 Ana

Publication

Scholastic Inc. (2000), Edition: 1st, 224 pages

Description

A novel in diary form in which the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II describes the privileged life her family led up until the time of World War I and the tragic events that befell them.

Local notes

1805-128

User reviews

LibraryThing member Whisper1

This is a fascinating look at Imperial Russia as we observe the opulence that surrounded the Royal Romanov family through the eyes of Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna Romanov.

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Winters are bitter cold for peasants, yet there is ample

warmth in the grand rooms of Peterhof, The Winter palace and Tsarskoe Selo.

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Breezes blow gently as the Royal family amuses themselves with idyllic, charming carefree days in the summer palace of Livadia in the Crimea overlooking the Baltic Sea.

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Food is plentiful as the side boards groan with plenty abundance and the family dines on picked reindeer tongue while sailing aboard their luxurious royal yacht Standart.

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Trinkets and presents abound as Peter Carl Faberge' designs intricate eggs of gold, ruby and emerald studded gems.

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Shining, lace dresses fill the closets and trunks as the children prepare for family portraits, dinners and entertaining balls. Birthday diamonds are given each year to the four daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra. Intricate toys are fashioned for young Alexei, the heir to the throne.

Beyond their control, darkness intrudes as the frail Tsarevitch Alexei struggles with the genetically inherited disease of hemophilia.

Lying in excruciating pain, Alexei's blood refuses to clot. His emotionally crippled mother, desperate to bring relief, fosters a devastating relationship with Rasputin, a mystical "healer" who is an unwashed, ill mannered, uncouth, barbaric pheasant.

Rasputin is ushered into the lavish life of the Romanov family. Unlike other pheasant servants, he enters the palace gates by the front door, into the parlor to sip tea and into the guilded dining halls to feast as a guest of honor.

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The ineffective, emotionally weak Tsar Nicholas II is lured into the destructive involvement of WWI.

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After 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded Russians litter the battlefields, the people revolt, staging violent riots and strikes.

In March 1917, the last Tsar of Russia abdicates his thrown as Russia is thrown into turmoil and chaos.

The story of Anastasia as protrayed by Carolyn Meyer ends two months before before the brutal slaughter of the Romanov family at the hands of eleven executioners who systematically shot the family in the basement room of "The House of Special Purpose in Ekaterinburg Russia.

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Highly Recommended
For further study, I recommend the books The Kitchen Boy and the Romanov Bride by Robert Alexande

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LibraryThing member AngelaB86

Historical fiction, the diary of Grand Duchess Anastasia, describing the way her family lived and the events leading up to the Revolution. A great series for young girls!

One feature of the Royal Diaries series is once the story is finished, the author includes a section which is only facts:

pictures/portraits of the main characters, family trees, a "What life was like in (insert name) lived" to help the reader distinguish between what we know about the characters, what we assume from artifacts found, and what the author made up to help the story along.

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LibraryThing member sgerbic

Reviewed April 2001

As far as I can tell this diary is historically accurate - I enjoyed meeting Anastasia's family and what her last years must have been like. You think you have a lot of knowledge about a person or event and then you read something like this that fills in the details and makes

the people real. Who cares if her maid was a personal friend named Eva of if she loved to eat salmon, what matters most are the events in her life. We know that the women did have the family jewels sewn into their dresses and in this diary, the girls sit down and sew them into the clothing. I really enjoyed hearing about Rasputin and his influence over the royal family. Also the overview at the end of the book which tells the true historical opinion of the Tsar and his ruling style is very interesting. This book is different from the other young adult books, so far in that it has many actual photos inside. These type of books make good reading on vacation...this time in San Francisco for Caspian's birthday.

8-2001

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LibraryThing member Samwisegirl12

Ever since I saw the cartoon movie, "Anastasia", I have been obsessed with learning about the Romanov family, and this book was fantastic for that!
As I've come to expect from all the Royal Diaries books, "Anastasia: The Last Grand Duchess" was full of interesting details and characters from the

tragic story of the family of Russia's last tsar.
Some of my favorite elements were the family's holiday traditions, Anastasia's tribulations with her sisters (and their OTMA plays), as well as the creepy presence of the sinister Father Grigory, or as he is better known, Rasputin.
As always in this series, there is a section in the back with photos, family trees, and other historical background to add to the diary.
Highly recommended!

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LibraryThing member heidigilia

Grades 6-8
Written from Anastasia’s perspective through her journal entries, we get a look at what the last years of her life might have been like. It gives us a good look at the struggles of a country and family during a war; however at many times I was bored with the story. In some ways we see

that the royal family was not all that different from a normal family, having to study and take care of family. However they still were royalty and had servants and a father that was gone a lot because of the war. The story was more interesting when we start to see the war affect the family more closely and they have to struggle and eventually leave. I felt the best parts of the book were the Epilogue and Life in Russia in 1914. There is information about the Romanov family, their family tree, photographs, as well as what happen to them from after they leave Tobolsk.

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LibraryThing member KeFu0718

love this book! I love historical fiction from Europe.I wonder if she actually wrote in a diary.

LibraryThing member TheMadHatters

Fictional journal of Anastasia as her family leads a life of privilege until the Russian Revolution leads to the assassination of her entire family.

LibraryThing member Beammey

I really liked this book more than the last one I read in the series, though I could definitely tell this book was written for a younger audience, which once again, made me wish I had known about these books when I was in the proper age group, but such is life. The story line is good, I connected

with Anastasia and her family and there was a part of me that grew upset during the epilogue even though I knew it was coming. I learned a lot as well. It was worth the read. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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LibraryThing member Beammey

with Anastasia and her family and there was a part of me that grew upset during the epilogue even though I knew it was coming. I learned a lot as well. It was worth the read. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

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LibraryThing member LibraryCin

This tells the story of Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra of Russia. It is told in diary format and starts in January 1914. At the beginning of the book, Anastasia is a carefree rich 12-year old, with not too much to worry about. As time goes on, her diary covers

Rasputin, World War I, and her family's imprisonment. There is then an epilogue to cover the end of her story and a historical note that, in a short version, covers much of Russia's history

I really enjoyed this YA telling of the Romanovs' story from Anastasia's point of view. It's definitely an interesting way, especially for someone young, to learn about that history.

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LibraryThing member Marse

I know this is a series for young girls, but as someone with a strong interest in Russian history and in the last of the Romanovs, this book seemed very...tepid. The character of Anastasia just never really came alive, and the circumstances around the royal family is not made very interesting.

Compared to Karen Lasky's fictional diary of Marie Antoinette, I would say this one is a dude.

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LibraryThing member jguidry

This is a great series for middle grades to get a taste of historical fiction and to maybe become interested in history. The diary format is usually easy to read and gives information in small doses with a personal feel to them. This one seemed choppier than others I had read in the series. I have

read other fiction and non-fiction books about the Romanovs so I was familiar with the story. I'm not certain that someone completely unfamiliar with the story would have been able to follow the storyline. The epilogue did wrap things up nicely and summarize the events and legends though.

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