Four young women given a voice

What we chiefly remember about the four Romanov sisters is that in 1918 they, their parents and their younger brother were all murdered. In Four Sisters the author Helen Rappaport writes about the life of these young women as part of their family and growing up with, seemingly, a whole life in front of them. It’s a book about privilege and the end of an era but also about families.

The four sisters were Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. As the hereditary ruler of Russia had to be a man they were all disappointments when they were born and when their younger brother did arrive they were second to him both at home and in the public eye. The succession having been secured the sisters were brought up and educated to make good marriages which would assist their country. They were completely isolated from the world in a bubble of privilege and always surrounded by people trying to keep them secure.

Their father, the Tsar, was beleaguered, their mother was a hypochondriac with a reliance on faith healing and their brother had haemophilia which made him fragile and vulnerable. The girls, however, enjoyed their time with their family and there were some memorable holidays on their boat and in the Crimea. When the war came the girls were able to be more useful but that stopped abruptly after the revolution when they were imprisoned in steadily worsening conditions and kept away from family and supporters.

This book was written with the assistance of many letters sent by the girls but also documents from others which mention them. We get to see what the girls liked, what their lives were like and their hopes for the future. This author gives them a voice which, of course, makes the impact of their death greater for the reader. An interesting book which is well told and engaging.