Thirteen Years at the Russian Court: A Personal Record of the Last Years and Death of the Czar Nicholas II. and his Family

Pierre Gilliard‏

اسفند ۲۰۱۸ · Pickle Partners Publishing

درباره این ای-کتاب

Nicholas II (1868-1918) was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from November 1, 1894 until his forced abdication on March 15, 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody or Vile Nicholas by his political adversaries due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the execution of political opponents, and his perceived responsibility for the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Soviet historians portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions.

Following author Pierre Gilliard’s return to Europe in September 1920, having been “cut off from communication with the rest of the world for many months,” he was dismayed to read of the recent publications on the subject of the Czar Nicholas II. and his family. Upon realizing that the general public appeared to have accepted the reports as gospel, his indignation grew—and he immediately set out to “rehabilitate the moral character of the Russian sovereigns.” Thirteen Years at the Russian Court, which was first published in 1921, is the result.

With 59 illustrations, including portraits.

“In this book I have endeavoured to bring Nicholas II. and his family back to life. My aim is to be absolutely impartial and to preserve complete independence of mind in describing the events of which I have been an eyewitness. It may be that in my search for truth I have presented their political enemies with new weapons against them, but I greatly hope that this book will reveal them as they really were, for it was not the glamour of their Imperial dignity which drew me to them, but their nobility of mind and the wonderful moral grandeur they displayed through all their sufferings.”—Pierre Gilliard, Introduction

درباره نویسنده

Pierre Gilliard (1879-1962) was a Swiss academic and author, best known as the French language tutor to the five children of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia from 1905-1918. In 1921, after the Russian Revolution of 1917, he published a memoir, Thirteen Years at the Russian Court, about his time with the family. Born on May 16, 1879 in Fiez, Switzerland, he initially came to Russia in 1904 as a French tutor to the family of Duke George of Leuchtenberg, a cousin of the Romanov family. He was recommended as a French tutor to the Tsar’s children and began teaching the elder children, Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia in 1905. He grew fond of the family and followed them into internal exile at Tobolsk, Siberia, following the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks prevented Gilliard from joining his pupils when they were moved to the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg in May 1918. Gilliard remained in Siberia after the murders of the family, assisting White Russian investigator Nicholas Sokolov. He married Alexandra “Shura” Tegleva, who had been a nurse to Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, in 1919. In Siberia, he was instrumental in unmasking an impostor who claimed to be the Tsarevich Alexei. In 1920, he returned to Switzerland via the Russian Far East. He became a French professor at the University of Lausanne and was awarded the French Legion of Honor. In 1958, Gilliard was severely injured in a car accident in Lausanne. He never fully recovered and died four years later on May, 30 1962, aged 83.