Becoming a Romanov: Grand Duchess Elena of Russia and her World (1871–1873), by Marina Soroka and Charles A. Ruud

Every student of nineteenth-century Russia is familiar with the name of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna. Not only was she the aunt by marriage of Tsar Alexander II (and, indeed, the sister-in-law of Tsar Alexander I and Tsar Nicholas I), she was also a central figure in the complex series of political and bureaucratic manœuvres that led up to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Elena Pavlovna appears in every serious account of Russia’s Great Reforms, yet her name is much better known than her life. Marina Soroka and Charles Ruud have attempted to resolve this conundrum in their new book.

Soroka and Ruud only address the question of the Great Reforms in the final chapters of their book. Instead, they use a wealth of archival material to build up a picture of the woman who was born Frederica Charlotte Marie in 1807, daughter of Prince Paul of Württemberg, before being married in 1824 to the younger brother of Tsar Alexander I of Russia. Her marriage to the Grand Duke Mikhail was seldom happy, although the two seem to have arrived at a modus vivendi, based on long periods of separation and a shared commitment to promoting the welfare of the Romanov dynasty. The Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (as she became, following her conversion to Orthodoxy) was, from a young age, interested in both culture and politics. Her salon at the Mikhailovskii Palace became, during the 1830s, an important meeting-place for writers and musicians, as well as those who believed that the government of Tsar Nicholas I would at some point need to contemplate the kind of social and economic reforms required to bolster Russian power and allow it to compete with the other Great Powers. Soroka and Ruud’s chapter on the ‘Red Cabinet’ is of particular value in showing the deep historical roots of the reformist coalition that eventually prevailed in ending serfdom in Russia.

Perhaps the main strength of this book is its extensive use of archival material from the main Russian repositories. Soroka and Ruud have identified a wealth of correspondence that casts fascinating light on Elena Pavlovna’s relations with men and women, ranging from Pavel Kiselev and Nikolai Miliutin to Iuri Samarin and Baroness E.F. Rahden. The material provides a vivid insight into the social and political networks which thrived even under the autocratic regime of Nicholas I. The book is also valuable in covering topics beyond the question of reform networks and royal duties. One chapter provides a detailed discussion of Elena Pavlovna’s role in sending a cohort of female nurses to tend to the wounded in the Crimean War. Equally fascinating is the discussion of the religious faith of the Grand Duchess. Elena Pavlovna was, without doubt, a devout Orthodox, but she was also sympathetic to what might be called the ecumenical spirit found in Russia during the first half of the nineteenth century, despite the strictures of what was to become formalised as the policy of Official Nationality (that is, the ideological triad of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality). It is almost a cliché to suggest that critics of serfdom were often inspired by a thoroughly westernised moral consciousness. Even prominent Slavophiles such as Samarin and Cherkasskii rejected the idea that serfdom represented a fundamental feature of Russia’s identity. Elena Pavlovna’s own moral sense seems to have been shaped by a curious fusion of Enlightenment values and religious faith of a kind that was not unusual in the Russia of Nicholas I.

There are inevitably some aspects of the book that are less successful. Soroka and Ruud face the familiar challenge encountered by all biographers of deciding how much background needs to be included to make sense of the life of their subject. Since the book is broadly aimed at specialists rather than a popular market, it would perhaps have been possible to sketch in the historical tapestry more briefly, safe in the knowledge that readers are likely to have at least a working knowledge of such topics as the Crimean War. Soroka and Ruud are also very economical in their references to the standard western (and indeed post-Soviet) historiography. This is rather a shame. Much of their material on the personal networks built up by Elena Pavlovna nicely complements the work of W. Bruce Lincoln. The book would also have benefited from closer engagement with the work of scholars ranging from Terence Emmons to Ben Eklof, in order to help ‘position’ more precisely Elena Pavlovna’s role in fostering the drive towards Emancipation. The material uncovered by Soroka and Ruud certainly casts light on many of the questions that come to the fore in any discussion of the Emancipation, ranging from the role of literature in shaping public opinion, through to the extent of concern among the landowning nobility about serf unrest.

Too much should not be made of these criticisms. The book fulfils a valuable role in giving a more nuanced portrait of Elena Pavlovna than has appeared before in any English-language account. Its value rests as much on the insights and vignettes scattered through the book as on any fundamental re-interpretation of the nature of the country’s social and political life. It can be read with profit by any student of late Imperial Russia.