Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. She had golden hair and blue eyes and she married a prince. He was a Russian Grand Duke, an uncle of Tsar Nicholas II. But the princess did not live happily ever after. Her coach not only turned into a pumpkin it turned into a nightmare. Christina Croft endows her biographical novel of Ella, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, with sensitivity and flair and with a poetic gift. This story of Ella's struggle is not a litany of woe. Ella's life was scarred by tragedies but she rose above tragedy because she herself never gave in to despair- never- even when she was thrown into a mine pit by the notorious Cheka. (Witnesses to this horrific event could hear her singing a hymn way down below in the shaft). Therefore the tone of this novel is not sordid, but warm, confiding, optimistic, up-beat because Ella would have willed it that way. "Most Beautiful Princess" is a paean to a human spirit that triumphed in the face of the most awful circumstances.
Before discussing this fine novel further, let me put you up to speed as to who Ella was, in case you are unfamiliar with her. She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria as her mother was Victoria's second daughter, Alice. Alice married Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse, a small German duchy. Elizabeth, always called Ella, was the couple's second daughter and older sister to the famous Alix, who became Empress Alexandra and wife of Nicholas II.
Ella was considered the most beautiful princess in Europe and she had many suitors including Kaiser Wilhelm II, whom she didn't fancy. She married the very controversial Russian Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich, a son of Tsar Alexander II. Serge was rumored to be a homosexual and considered by many to be haughty, cold, and even a sadist. But Ella cherished him and when he was assassinated by a terrorist bomb she renounced her worldly goods and glories, became a nun and eventually abbess of the Order of Martha and Mary which she founded. For the rest of her life she devoted herself to charity work and nursing, and although the Bolsheviks killed her in 1918 along with the entire imperial family, they could not quench her spirit. She was canonized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1992.
The successful biographical novel depends upon the author's ability to get inside his characters' heads and recreate their speech, their manner, their idiosyncrasies, their very thoughts in a way that is totally convincing. You must feel that if a character did not actually make some observation, say something, or act in a certain way as imagined by the writer, he should have. Christina Croft had to get inside the heads of a great many historical people, people very well known to us and portray them in a refreshingly new light while making them behave in a manner that is totally authentic. Ella comes alive for us as does Queen Victoria, Nicholas and Alexandra, Ella's enigmatic husband Serge, Pavel (her adulterous brother-in-law), the soul-tortured writer Konstantin, Nicky's wily mother Minnie, Ernie (Ella's homosexual brother) and many more. Lots of gossipy facts and conversations the history aficionado will relish.
By marrying a Russian grand duke Ella became a member of the Russian royal family and she entered a very different world in which the tsar was autocrat, the aristocrats were smothered in jewels and privilege and the uneducated peasants toiled and died, unwept unhonored and unsung. Almost unsung. Ella cared about them but she couldn't go among them to help them because her husband, the emotionally sterile, snobbish Grand Duke Serge, wouldn't let her. That would come later.
Ella embraced Russian Orthodoxy after years of soul-searching and she became serene, she had an aura of saintliness. She almost appeared as a spiritual island among the seething jealousies, spites, and intrigues of the Russian court. When her husband was blown to bits by a bomb she did not lose that serenity, she simply rose above suffering. She became a nun and devoted her life to the poor. But she saw the deluge coming. She tried to talk sense into the head of her sister Alix in regard to the latter's unseemly relationship with Rasputin, but to no avail. The Romanov dynasty was doomed and it was destroyed. Ella was destroyed, too, but not before singing a hymn. Not before binding the head of a fellow sufferer in the bottom of that horrible mine shaft.
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