Spirit to Survive: The Memoirs of Princes Nicholas Galitzine

195 pp. Princess Galitzine was born into the aristocratic and ruling class of Russian in 1900--a world of town houses and country estates, of footmen and governesses, and yet of essential simplicity, of material security and pervading calm. There was nothing in these earlier years to prepare the child for the cataclysm that was to follow, years that are described in the book with a telling memory of their homely details. But in 1917 this world was torn asunder. Her father was arrested, and though the table was still beautifully laid with silver and crystal there was scarcely any food on it. Then events moved from deprivation to terror. In 1919 her father was shot, and she herself was later arrested by the G.P.U. and in solitary confinement she lived in expectation of execution. She was eventually exiled to the Urals where she married Prince Galitzine who had been a fellow prisoner. her brother-in-law had succeeded in reaching England and he appealed to Hindenburg to intervene with Stalin and secured the couple's release. They arrived in England in 1932.