Customer Reviews

Thirteen Years at the Russian Court (Russia Observed)

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Gilliard was the tutor for the five royal children, so this is a very intimate portrait of their lives from about 1909 or so until they died. He went with them when they were imprisoned and along with several other servents was separated from the family when they reached Ekaterenburg. The book has a lot of information in it and is a good first-person account of life with the family. The pictures are a bit muddy however, which is more the fault of the publisher than the original print.

This book goes into fantastic detail about the children of Tsar Nicholas II. Mr. Gilliard was the private tutor of the children. More importantly it tells of the family's last days. A must read for anyone interested in Russian history.

I read this book, here in Brazil.This book is available, for free reading, on internet's site.Even being an agronomist, I love to read historic books.
This book was writen more than 80 years ago.The author was a doctor, working in last russian court.The despair of a doctor treating, the royal prince who had hemophilia.Even with so many care, at that time, hemophilia was cureless, painfull and in many times, also mortal illness.So cureless as prince's hemophilia was, the last Tzar's incompetence.This book is concise, very easy to read and even similar to a novel, this is 100% true and historic book.The last chapters of this book are about the author's history after the Tzar's family, being murdered.Everything in this book is true.And this book is unbiased and correct.

This man, Gilliard, who was once described by the Danish minister to Berlin as "the lickspittle of the Grand Duke of Hesse," would never have dared publish this book if his Imperial employers had not died. Look what happened to the present Queen Elizabeth's governess, "Crawfie" when she published a seemingly innocous little book about her royal charges; Banished from her 'Grace and Favour' home, banished from Royal circles and never spoken of in Royal circles again.

Sadly Gilliard's book is the quicksand in which so many other authors sink, including, I have to say it, Robert Massie in his "Nicholas and Alexandra." Gilliard presents himself as a kind of paragon, and he often puts himself as an observer in situations where he could not have possibly been.

Of course, he could hardly expect to sell the book if he declared himself to be the very minor member of the household he actually was, so, he 'embroiders' his story to appear to be a close confidant of both the Tsar and the Tsarina. Grotesquely many many historians appear to have been taken in by him. Don't you be!

i ordered it throught ayerpub an never got it. delivery terms : 60 days. reply of amazon : sorry, too late, we don't care after this period, thank you for the money