Tea at Trianon: For You, Madame Lenin

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, November 9, 2012

For You, Madame Lenin

Kat Meads’ exquisite prose brings to life one of the most determined and enigmatic women in history in a story which exemplifies with irony, pathos and dark humor that there is no tragedy like a Russian tragedy. The life of Nadya Krupskaya, wife of the first Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin, is told in vignettes and through fictional historical interviews, mostly from the point of view of Nadya’s devoted mother Yelizaveta Vasilevna. Yelizaveta watches as her daughter immolates her entire person for the triumph of the Revolution and the glory of Lenin. In striving to build a free new world by destroying the old one, Nadya endures sickness, prison, exile, poverty, an unfaithful and mercurial husband, and ultimately the betrayal of the party for whom she sacrifices herself. Throughout the novel she nourishes hatred and contempt for the bourgeoisie and the monarchy, with particular hatred for the Empress Alexandra. Nevertheless, the day comes when she realizes how difficult it is to carry the burden of supreme power, and like Alexandra must face her own downfall, as Russia falls into the hands of a ruler more tyrannical than any tsar could have imagined.

This review was originally published in the November 2012 edition of the Historical Novels Review.

(*NOTE: This book was sent to me by the Historical Novel Society in exchange for my honest opinion.)

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