Michel Vergé-Franceschi et Anna Gnedina-Moretti, Tsars and Tsarinas. From Ivan the Terrible to Nicholas II, Passés Composés, 15/10/26, 300 pages, 24 €
For a long time, biographies—brilliant or more controversial—have appeared on booksellers’ tables and traced the lives of Russian rulers. One is drawn to the iconic figures: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, or Catherine the Great. Nicholas II, whose tragic end has fed countless narratives and speculations, is never far away. To encompass the course of this immense history, there had been a missing work that would let readers follow, with clarity and rigor, the glories, the violences, and the tragedies that marked the tsars’ destinies. Michel Vergé-Franceschi, whose historical opus is substantial, and Anna Gnedina-Moretti, familiar with Russian and European cultures, offer this century-spanning traversal. Their book has all the makings of a library staple: it provides the bearings that are often absent from passionate discussions about Russia.
From Grand Prince to Caesar
Before the unification of Russia, there was the long history of the principalities of Rus’, the inheritances of Kiev and Novgorod, and, later, the rise of Moscow. Diverse peoples, commercial exchanges, political rivalries, and the gradual Christianization of these lands shaped a space not to be imagined as cut off from the rest of the world. As Muscovy asserted itself, Orthodoxy played a powerful role in its legitimacy.
Ivan IV, whom history has nicknamed “the Terrible,” carried this ambition to its peak. Crowned tsar in 1547, he adopted a title whose origin traces back to Caesar. Under his rule, the centralization of power was accompanied by brutalities of a fearsome scale, notably against the boyars and populations suspected of treason. The empire’s grandeur grew, alas, amid the clamor of terror.
Reigns of Violence
What strikes in this sequence of portraits is the extraordinary proximity between prestige and cruelty. The Kremlin’s splendors answer the repression of opposition, banishments, and punishments. The rulers claim to guarantee order; their methods too often remind us that no institution can permanently check their will. Peter the Great embodies this contradiction. His modernization program upends the army, the administration, and Russia’s maritime ambitions, while the revolts of the Streltsy are crushed with relentless severity. The accounts of the executions in 1698, sometimes stark, speak clearly to the human price of authoritarian reform. As for Peter III, he is enthusiastic about Prussian military practices, which fuels his unpopularity at court and among officers.
Sovereigns and Court Legends
The women do not stay in the shadows of this history. Catherine I, coming from humble origins, reaches the pinnacle of the Empire after sharing life with Peter the Great. Her path alone upends many certainties about birth and power. Court chronicles attribute excesses to her; however, one must distinguish solid testimony from anecdotes that time has amplified. With Catherine II, known as the Great, the scale shifts. A skilled politician, a cultured sovereign, and a correspondent of Enlightenment philosophers, she governs an empire she intends to fortify and enlarge. Her private life has spawned a profusion of gossip, often revealing more about the prejudices against a woman in power than about the reality of her reign. It would be a pity if these legends obscure the empress’s diplomatic acumen and her work ethic.
Imperial Whims
Palaces multiply, ceremonies abound in pomp, and courtly practices wax and wane with each sovereign. In such a universe, arbitrariness can assume ridiculous forms; yet it remains formidable for those who bear the consequences. The great undertakings, foremost among them the construction of Saint Petersburg, remind us that imperial ambitions also rested on a labor force subjected to privation and coercion. Some stories handed down from one century to the next are so extravagant that prudence is warranted. Yet their persistence says something about autocrats’ reputations: a private society deprived of counterpowers is always tempted to translate fear into inflated narratives.
Murders at All Levels
At court, no rank offers absolute protection from disgrace. Dynastic dramas traverse the reigns. The death of Ivan the Terrible’s son, traditionally attributed to his father, has sparked historiographical debate. The execution of Tsarevich Alexei, son of Peter the Great, occurs during confinement in 1718 after a trial and tortures: the political involvement of his father is evident, even if the exact circumstances require precision. Peter III is toppled in 1762 and dies shortly after under murky conditions; Catherine II’s personal role in his disappearance remains debated. Paul I is assassinated in 1801, at the end of a plot of which his son Alexander knew; it cannot be reduced to a theatrical tableau with all its mechanisms. Behind the crowns, the same fragility is relentlessly sketched out.
Expiatory Victims
The final tableau is the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. In 1918, Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, their four daughters, and the young Alexei are held there. With them are the family doctor and three servants. In the night of July 16–17, the eleven prisoners are executed. Imperial splendor has vanished; only the brutality of the decision and the terror of this final scene remain.
Thus ends the era of the tsars. The book by Michel Vergé-Franceschi and Anna Gnedina-Moretti revives a history that is at once fascinating and trying, where the splendor of appearances often conceals the precariousness of destinies. Imperial Russia does not appear as a succession of fixed portraits, but as a long tension between authority, reform, ambition, and violence.
The article “Tsars and Tsarinas. From Ivan the Terrible to Nicholas II” first appeared on Lythrum Press.
