THE LAST CZARS. (2019) A NETFLIX DOCU-DRAMA REVIEWED BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
THE LAST CZARS. (2019) A NETFLIX DOCU-DRAMA.
DIRECTED
BY ADRIAN MCDOWALL AND GARETH TUNLEY.
STARRING
ROBERT JACK, SUSANNA HERBERT AND BEN CARTWRIGHT.
REVIEW BY
SANDRA HARRIS. ©
I absolutely loved this Netflix based-on-real-events docu-drama,
although I’ve just read some reviews which delve painstakingly into all the
historical inaccuracies supposedly contained within. Well, I don’t know
anything about that. I’m not Russian and I didn’t really study much Russian
history at school.
I’d heard about Lenin and Trotsky, though for the life of me
I couldn’t have previously told you what they were meant to be famous for, and,
of course, I knew about dear cuddly old Uncle Joe, otherwise known as Stalin.
Therefore, I was watching the show as a viewer looking to be
entertained, rather than as an amateur historian looking to pick holes, and, in
this sense, I bloody enjoyed every second of it. I was highly entertained, plus
I even learned a few things about a really fascinating part of history about which
I’d formerly only known a few scraps here and there. Take that, critics, lol.
The six-part docu-drama features dramatized scenes,
historians like Simon Sebag Montefiore doing their ‘talking heads’ bit, and,
best of all, grainy black-and-white real life footage from over a century ago.
I do actually really like this three-pronged approach to historical eras,
events and personalities, and I daresay I would have learned a lot more history
in school if we’d been shown a mini-series like this from time to time…!
This is the story of the utter collapse of the Romanov dynasty,
who had ruled Russia for three hundred years at the time we come in. Nicholas
the Second, the last ever Czar, takes over the throne when his father dies in
1894 at the relatively young age of forty-nine.
Nicholas freely admits to his closest confidantes that he’s
not ready to be Czar, and he’s fairly convinced himself that he won’t be much
cop at ruling. His words turn out to be strangely- and sadly- prophetic.
It quickly becomes clear that Nicholas and his wife Alexandra,
a German by birth, though well-meaning and decent-seeming people, are
completely distanced from the poor downtrodden peasants they rule. Compare the
fabulous wealth of the Czar and Tzarina with the dismal poverty of their
subjects, some of whom live in hovels.
I adored eyeing up the glorious jewels, crowns, dresses, ornaments and adornments in the series, not to mention the fabulous settings, but it made me feel uncomfortable too. Any time or place where you have nobility living in a splendour so luxurious it’s actually an embarrassment, in close proximity to people who can’t afford food, medicine or education, you may be sure that there’s an uprising in the offing. Just look at the French Revolution, and ‘off with their heads,’ etc.
Nicholas, a devoted family man, undoubtedly preferred his
home life with his wife and five children to ruling the country. When he ruled,
however, he was an old-style autocrat and steadfastly refused to bring in the
reforms that Russia was clearly crying out for. This, of course, is the main
reason for the shocking finale to the Romanovs’ story.
Nicholas and Alexandra had four lovely daughters, Olga, Maria, Tatiana and Anastasia, but, of course, they needed a son and heir to secure the future of the dynasty. In 1904, they had their only son Alexei, but he was born with the incurable disease known as haemophilia. His parents were frantic with worry that he might die. Enter Rasputin, the so-called ‘mad monk,’ brilliantly played with a strong Northern English accent by Ben Cartwright. ‘Get your fookin’ hands off me…!’
Rasputin’s powers of healing- and it really does seem like he’s
got them- cause the Tsarina in particular to come to depend on him, to the
point where Alexandra can barely tolerate his being out of her sight. The
scruffy-looking Rasputin helps the boy, and attracts the women of the court
with his grim, gritty, animalistic sexual magnetism.
He loves living the high life, boozing and stuffing his face
with luxury foods, and he loves women best of all. He manipulates them easily
with the power of his strong personality. Rumours abounded that the monk and
Alix, the Tsarina, were having an affair, and filthy cartoons of them having
sexual intercourse were published and distributed to an angry public, who
demanded, to no avail, that the Royals ditch the monk. They refused…
War with Japan came, and later the event known as Bloody Sunday,
when Nicholas’s troops opened fire on a large group of peaceful protesters. They
had marched to St. Petersburg to ask for better working conditions and the
establishment of a parliamentary assembly in which the people could have a say
in how things were run. Nicholas’s name was mud after over a thousand people
were shot down by his guards.
Although Nicholas reluctantly agreed to the formation of an
elected legislature known as the Duma, it didn’t go far enough in terms of the
sweeping reforms the country needed. World War One certainly didn’t increase Nicky’s
popularity. Russia suffered heavy losses and extreme, war-related poverty. The
people were at breaking point…
Do I agree with what happened to Nicky, his wife and his five
children in ‘the House of Special Purpose’ in Ekaterinberg on the night
of July 16th-17th, 1918? Hmmm. It was certainly a
barbaric act, although I understand the desperation of the downtrodden and
impoverished people who deemed the imperial family’s elimination a necessary
act.
If it were me, I would probably have just sent the family
into hiding in a foreign country for their own safety, but even then, there was
still a chance that they might be rescued by the White Armies and reinstated.
That was obviously what the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, feared most, so they took
no chances. The nearby woods yielded some very valuable historical evidence in
1979.
May I just add that what happened to Alix’s sister after the
death of the Czar and his family was just awful. Why would you end
someone’s life in such a horrible, lingering fashion when you have faster, more
humane ways at your disposal? If you’re hell-bent on murdering someone, for
Christ’s sake make it swift, make it merciful.
The three leads, as Nicky, Alix and Rasputin, are fantastic. I also loved Bernice Stegers
as Minnie, Nicky’s battleaxe of a widowed mum, who certainly knew her onions,
and Duncan Pow as Yakov Yurovsky, who genuinely seemed to believe that what he
was doing was right. Necessary, anyway, if not right exactly.
There’s also a suggestion in the series that Anastasia may have escaped the horrific massacre that killed her family and some of their servants, but you can make up your own minds on that one. And, you know what? I don’t care what other reviewers have said about historical loopholes you could drive a tank through. I’m watching this again. Starting tonight.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her debut romantic fiction novel, 'THIRTEEN
STOPS,' is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Stops-Sandra-Harris-ebook/dp/B089DJMH64
The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is
out now from Poolbeg Books:
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