The Czar's Last Soldier

The Czar's Last Soldier
Author: Jacques Evans
Publisher: Jacques Evans
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2009-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 145230727X

The Czar's Last Soldier is the story of the search for the Star of Golconda a 42.5-carat diamond slightly smaller than the Hope diamond. Before he was killed, a marine buried the diamond in his foxhole on the island of Corregidor during World War II. Thirty-two years later, at a Nebraska post office, Sam Gibbons and Roscoe Barnes are removing the old post office boxes and replacing them with new ones. Both men are World War II veterans who teamed up as general contractors after the war. When the old post office boxes are removed a letter hidden between warped boards falls to the floor. The letter, dated 1942, is from the marine who died on Corregidor and gives the particulars of a jewel theft he committed at the Shanghai Officer's Club in 1941. As there are no members of the marine's family still alive, they read the letter. Shortly after the theft, the marine's regiment was transferred from China to the Philippines. After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the regiment was tasked to defend Corregidor. When the order to surrender was given, not wanting the Japanese to gloom onto the stolen jewels, the marine buried them. Sam and Roscoe hunt for the jewels but are unaware they were stolen from a czarist officer and are thrust into the middle of an international legal battle.

The Last of the Tsars

The Last of the Tsars
Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1681775727

A riveting account of the last eighteen months of Tsar Nicholas II's life and reign from one of the finest Russian historians writing today. In March 1917, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of All the Russias, abdicated and the dynasty that had ruled an empire for three hundred years was forced from power by revolution. Now Robert Service, the eminent historian of Russia, examines Nicholas's life and thought from the months before his momentous abdication to his death, with his family, in Ekaterinburg in July 1918. The story has been told many times, but Service's deep understanding of the period and his forensic examination of previously untapped sources, including the Tsar's diaries and recorded conversations, as well as the testimonies of the official inquiry, shed remarkable new light on his troubled reign, also revealing the kind of Russia that Nicholas wanted to emerge from the Great War. The Last of the Tsars is a masterful study of a man who was almost entirely out of his depth, perhaps even willfully so. It is also a compelling account of the social, economic and political ferment in Russia that followed the February Revolution, the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917, and the beginnings of Lenin's Soviet socialist republic.

The Last Tsar

The Last Tsar
Author: Edvard Radzinsky
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2011-03-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307754626

Russian playwright and historian Radzinsky mines sources never before available to create a fascinating portrait of the monarch, and a minute-by-minute account of his terrifying last days.

The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two

The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk During the World War, Book Two
Author: Jaroslav Hašek
Publisher: Good Soldier Švejk
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2009-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1438916701

A picaresque series of tales about an ordinary man's successful quest to survive, and a funny but unrelentingly savage assault on the very idea of bureaucratic officialdom as a human enterprise conferring benefits on those who live under its control, and on the various justifications bureaucracies offer for their own existence.

All the Tsar's Men

All the Tsar's Men
Author: John W. Steinberg
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801895456

All the Tsar’s Men examines how institutional reforms designed to prepare the Imperial Russian Army for the modern battlefield failed to prevent devastating defeats in both the 1905 Russo-Japanese War and World War I. John W. Steinberg argues that the General Staff officers who devised new educational and doctrinal reforms had the experience, dedication, and leadership skills to defend the empire in the new age of warfare but were continually impeded by institutionalized inefficiency and rigid control from their superiors. These officers, he explains, were operating within a command structure unwilling to grant them the autonomy necessary to effect significant reform, which proved disastrous for the army and—ultimately—the empire.

With Snow on Their Boots

With Snow on Their Boots
Author: Jamie H. Cockfield
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 422
Release: 1999-07-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0312220820

In 1916, in an exchange of human flesh for war material, the Russian government sent to France two brigades to fight on the side of their French allies. By the end of World War I, these two brigades had experienced their own form of the Russian Revolution, had been isolated at a southern training post in a discipline move by the French government, had battled against each other in what was one of the first confrontations of the Russian Civil War, and had emerged from the conflict as a single force, the Russian Legion of Honor, which would remain loyal to France until the end of the war. The remarkable story of these Russian soldiers has been overlooked by historians until now. Jamie Cockfield here explores the journey and transformation of these men, and in so doing, he examines the impact of the revolution on the Russians who were caught in the middle of wartime alliances and nationalist ardor.

The Race to Save the Romanovs

The Race to Save the Romanovs
Author: Helen Rappaport
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2018-06-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250151236

In this international bestseller investigating the murder of the Russian Imperial Family, Helen Rappaport embarks on a quest to uncover the various plots and plans to save them, why they failed, and who was responsible. The murder of the Romanov family in July 1918 horrified the world, and its aftershocks still reverberate today. In Putin's autocratic Russia, the Revolution itself is considered a crime, and its anniversary was largely ignored. In stark contrast, the centenary of the massacre of the Imperial Family was commemorated in 2018 by a huge ceremony attended by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. While the murders themselves have received major attention, what has never been investigated in detail are the various plots and plans behind the scenes to save the family—on the part of their royal relatives, other governments, and Russian monarchists loyal to the Tsar. Rappaport refutes the claim that the fault lies entirely with King George V, as has been the traditional view for the last century. The responsibility for failing the Romanovs must be equally shared. The question of asylum for the Tsar and his family was an extremely complicated issue that presented enormous political, logistical and geographical challenges at a time when Europe was still at war. Like a modern day detective, Helen Rappaport draws on new and never-before-seen sources from archives in the US, Russia, Spain and the UK, creating a powerful account of near misses and close calls with a heartbreaking conclusion. With its up-to-the-minute research, The Race to Save the Romanovs is sure to replace outdated classics as the final word on the fate of the Romanovs.

A Study Guide for Norman Dubie's "Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals"

A Study Guide for Norman Dubie's
Author: Gale, Cengage Learning
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
Total Pages: 22
Release: 2016
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1410343561

A Study Guide for Norman Dubie's "Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.

In the Trenches

In the Trenches
Author: Tatiana L. Dubinskaya
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 164012196X

Tatiana L. Dubinskaya’s autobiographical novel of life in the Russian army marked the first major work published by a female World War I soldier in the Soviet Union. Often compared to All Quiet on the Western Front, Dubinskaya’s stark and unsparing story presents a rare look at women in combat and one of the few works of fiction set on the eastern front. Zinaida, a Russian schoolgirl, runs away from home to join the army. Sent to the front, she endures the horrors of trench warfare and the hardships of military life. Undercurrents of revolutionary thinking filter into the ranks as morale begins to crumble. Zinaida must come to grips with the havoc unleashed by the czar’s overthrow and the new socialist government’s attempts to impose revolutionary reforms on the army. Destabilization and desertion follow, and her regiment joins the chaotic mass retreat of the Russian army in the summer of 1917. In addition to Dubinskaya’s original novel, this edition includes selections from her 1936 autobiographical work, Machine Gunner, which she rewrote to satisfy Stalinist censors.