Revolutionary Days: Recollections of Romanoffs and Bolsheviki, 1914-1917 [Romanovs]

411 pp. "As the strength of the Russian Empire began to falter during World War One, the seeds of Revolution were sown. Princess Julia Cantacuzene, a granddaughter of Ulysses S. Grant, was married to a Russian aristocrat and general, Michael Cantacuzene, and recorded in fascinating detail her experiences of those tumultuous days. Covering from just before the war broke out in 1914 and initial setbacks of the Russian army through to the growth of competing factions after the abdication of Nicholas II and the subsequent Bolshevik uprising, it continues until their eventual escape from Russia in 1917. Cantacuzene documented not only the broad changes that were occurring through the Revolution but also their own smaller concerns and experiences, therefore providing an extremely personal view of the Russian Revolution. From Rasputin to Trotsky, Kerensky to the Grand Duke Nicolas Nicolaiovitch, Cantacuzene provides in-depth analysis of all the characters who were instrumental in shaping this monumental moment in history. Cantacuzene travelled back and forth across the empire, including Petrograd, Kief and the Crimea, in order to evade tumult that was surrounding them, but they never truly escaped and instead they became witnesses to how the revolutionary fervor was affecting different parts of the empire. Revolutionary Days by Princess Cantacuzene is a brilliant first-person account of the Russian Revolution which observes both the Imperial and Bolshevik positions of that time."