Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia [Paperback]

Hugo Mager (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 14, 1999

Had Elizabeth, the exquisite granddaughter of Queen Victoria, not married the Grand Duke Serge of Russia, she would not have found herself, first, at the heart of the opulent court in St. Petersburg and, after the brutal assassination of her husband, in the embrace of the Russian Orthodox Church and a convent dedicated to Christian charity. Nor would she have battled the mesmeric Rasputin for her sister Alexandra's soul or suffered the bloody consequences of a Revolution that would lead to her martyrdom and, ultimately, sainthood. The dramatic details of Elizabeth's story make this elegant volume a fascinating, compelling biography. "Mager's elegantly written biography restores [Elizabeth] to her rightful place in history, a remarkable woman overshadowed by her more famous sister, Alexandra." - Publishers Weekly "A remarkable story . . . [a] fluent and moving biography of an extraordinary woman" - Houston Chronicle "In this spirited biography, Mager reconstructs the far-from-trivial life of this woman who possessed a lovely character to match her lovely face." - Booklist "An authoritative, well-researched biography of a fascinating woman" - Library Booknotes

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Maternal granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia was killed in 1918 by Bolsheviks, thrown down a Urals mine shaft just one day after the slaughter of the imperial family. British historian Mager's elegantly written biography restores her to her rightful place in history, a remarkable woman overshadowed by her more famous sister, Alexandra. Elizabeth led a life of high drama. Rejecting the overtures of her conceited cousin, Prince William of Prussia (the future Wilhelm II of Germany), she married another cousin?haughty, taciturn Serge, grand duke of Russia. Her belated discovery of his homosexuality and her eventual repulsion at his bigotry (he expelled all of Moscow's Jews in 1891) made her marriage a hollow formality. After witnessing Serge's assassination by a bomb thrower in 1905, Elizabeth, a convert to Russian Orthodoxy and a vegetarian, immersed herself in religion; she founded an order of nuns, built hospitals and an orphanage, tended to the poor and sick. She accepted the union of her sister, Alexandra, to the future Nicholas II, but she vehemently opposed Alexandra's involvement with self-proclaimed holy man Grigory Rasputin, and she approved of his assassination. Though scanty on interpretive analysis, Mager's biography penetrates the core of an emotionally rigid woman who bore tragedy with dignity and who lived by her conscience. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Mager, credited only as a student of Russian history, writes an academically soft account of Elizabeth, sister and contemporary of Czarina Alexandra. As both were English/German princesses married to Russian royalty, both experienced cultural distance in their adopted countries and eventually met identical deaths just a few miles apart at the hands of Bolshevik authorities. Their marriages were vastly different, however. In 1905, Grand Duke Serge, Elizabeth's husband, met a tragic end at the hands of revolutionaries because of his cold heart and dishonest dealings. That left Elizabeth clinging to religious icons and becoming a patron saint of the sick and poor. Mager uses Elizabeth to give an account of Alexandra's relationship with Rasputin. Essentially, it coincides with Greg King's The Man Who Killed Rasputin (Birch Lane, 1996) but omits many of the details given in King's book and makes Rasputin the main cause of the fall of Nicholas II, in opposition to much current thinking on the Russian Revolution. Light reading for more casual readers, this book is long on descriptions and short on citations but still recommended for public libraries.?Harry V. Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Sys., Iola
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (September 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786706783
• ISBN-13: 978-0786706785
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #942,459 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It could have been so much better, March 19, 1999

By 

Julian Kerrell-Vaughan (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia (Hardcover)

Any reader of the period will have probably yearned to know more, much more about Alexandra Feodorovna's elder sister the Grand Duchess Elizabeth and this is the reason I bought the book, despite reading the several poor reviews. In fact the author succeeded in giving a much stronger picture of the Tsarina than the saintly Elizabeth, a picture much at variance with, for example, Robert Massie's Tsarina, with her passion for mauve. Mager's Tsarina is a harpie and her quoted notes to her husband about 'Ella and her clique' are chilling in their venom and arrogance. On the side of lack of detail: Mager mentions Nesterov but hardly. He fails to tell us that Elizabeth, forever the supremely elegant Grand Duchess, actually got Nesterov to design her order's religious habit - Nesterov was the leading religious artist of the day. In effect Elizabeth's habit was as much 'couture' as were any of her former gowns. There are many other details, perhaps less frivolous (but also perhaps less telling) that he would have done well to include. Just as Wilhelm II must have irritated almost everyone with whom he came in contact, it's annoying to find him so much in this book too. The section of Elizabeth's life from her taking the veil is taken at a tremendous lick. Perhaps there is little documentary evidence available, but the lack of meat - reminiscences, quotations from letters and contemporaries bar Felix Youssupov - is sad. For a non-contemplative order - the first in the Church - Elizabeth's nuns appear to have been silent all the same. There are no names, no relayed conversations, nothing of Elizabeth's doubtless frequent talks to her community. For a woman that inspired so many around her, was so much a public figure and a venerated one that the Bolsheviks feared her, this latter part of her life lacks definition. The transfer to Ekaterinburg and Alapayevsk flashes past so quickly, but again no relayed conversations and so little detail (and as Princess Helen escaped there must have been many reported).

I was much irritated by the indifferent grammar and 'typos' with which the book is littered.

Having said so many negative things about the book I do wish to thank the author for having at least written about her. It was long overdue. However, just as Michael Sullivan's book on Victoria Melita - another granddaughter of Queen Victoria - adds much to the earlier Van Kiste biography I fear we must wait for a further biography on the elusive Elizabeth to satisfy us. We must however thank Mr Mager for whetting the appetite.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A long-overdue biography, but it could have been better, October 29, 2001

By 

phdc "phdc" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia (Paperback)

An interesting look at the life of the sister of Alexandra, the last Tsarina of Russia. The book is a paean to Elizabeth, whom the author considers as saintly throughout her life (although he demonstrates that her journey towards the spiritual life was, in fact, not in a straight line).

If anything, the book illustrates just how difficult it was to be a member of Queen Victoria's family--Elizabeth's early life is the stuff of a modern day spot on the Oprah show (two of her younger siblings die tragic deaths, as does her mother; subsequently herfather wants to marry a woman of whom Queen Vicky did not approve--intrigue and collusion within the family results). Elizabeth was the major force involved in marrying her sister Alix/Alexandra to the future Tsar of Russia, and her own marriage was, well...interesting (trust me, you have to read the book on this one!)

I agree with a previous reviewer that much more could have been written about her "spiritual" journey--it would have been much more interesting than the several chapters devoted to her attempt to remove Rasputin from his postition in the court and to help "prevent" the coming revolution.

Finally, I found it annoying that the author made constant attacks on the Russian people. It was unnecessary (and incorrect) to make statements along the lines of "the typically drunk and ignorant Russian people didn't appreciate the Grand Duchess" (I'm paraphrasing here, but his point throughout the book is that the imported Elizabeth was too good for the Russian people. I am not sure that at the end of her life the Grand Duchess would have agreed with him (certainly not in her role as mother superior of the convent.)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, January 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia (Hardcover)

This a very badly written book about a fascinating woman. The author's sources are not very thorough and he uses a lot of blanket statements. I was shocked by his condescending manner of the cultures with "the Tartar population in gaudy oriental dress" (267) and "the gaudy St. Basil Cathedral."(103n) He was completely patronizing and elitist in his view of Russian history and in particular the peasant and working class. He seems more interested in the frivolous details (the horror! they couldn't find Alexandra's hairdresser!)and fancy balls then real history.