Curse of the Romanovs - boogity boogity boo

For the past four or so years, I have been aware of the fascination with princesses. Disney's Belle, Cinderella, and etc have spread their sparkles over the eyes of the nation's children. It is annoying, but I try not to read too much into it most of the time (except for the afore-mentioned Belle of Beauty and the Beast, which has always struck me as a dangerously co-dependent kind of story; He's beastly, but if I love him enough he'll be a prince...) Anyhoo.

When it comes to historical princesses, however, I do try to see what is happening. Over the past few years there have been a few books on Anastasia, which personage has the dual advantage of being both royal and mysterious. Did she die, did she live? Poor kid! The hand-wringing over her fate is understandable from a human point of view, to be sure. It is not her fault that her father and family were tyrants, no. But she did benefit from the tyranny, and I wonder at the distinct dearth of hand-wringing over the fate of the children who were victims of the Tsar's pogroms.

Enter The Princess Diaries. Ostensibly the diaries of a variety of princesses, these books serve to suck the mind of the child dry of any historical perspective before it has a chance to take root. Naturally, there is one "by" Anastasia, which covers the war years and the revolutions of 1917. Without fail, revolutionaries (Menshevik or Bolshevik) are described as "rats", or "ugly". Horror is expressed at Lenin's idea that the country should be controlled by the workers.

Princes are also included now- with the publication of "The Curse of the Romanovs". Ostensibly a book about hemophilia, and time travel!, Alexi is the central character. He travels to 2010 in a time machine invented by Rasputin. There he visits- please sit down if you are not already- his cousin who is named- and I wish I were making this up, but I am not- Varda Ethel Rosenberg.

Varda. Ethel. Rosenberg.... Thereby adding insult to bad literature. The sheer insensitivity of naming a central character in such a book after a woman who was framed and killed for being a socialist would be amazing, had I not skipped ahead to the "further reading" section and seen that Pipes is recommended.

It is clear, in reading such books, that a labour of historical revisionism is hard at work. Workers, guard your children, for they are under literary attack.