Czars and Carinas of Russia

Book review by Edna Boardman, Bismarck, North Dakota

Rice, Tamara Talbot. Czars and Czarinas of Russia. New York: Lothrop, 1968.

Here is a collection of brief biographies of the significant czars and czarinas of Russia, beginning with Czar Ivan III, who in the 1400s decided to see what would happen if he did not pay the usual tribute to the khan, and ending with Nicholas II, who, in the early 1900s, with his entire family, was murdered in a remote forest by the Bolsheviks. There were several czars and czarinas who reigned briefly, but Rice incorporates their stories within the biographies of those who reigned longer and had more significant achievements. The author struggled valiantly to tame the complexities that make people avoid reading Russian history. This is not a complete history of Russia, but the author does a good job of giving the non-scholarly reader an overview.