După căderea Romanovilor. Elita rusă în exil la Paris

Helen Rappaport tells of Russia’s nobles, artists and thinkers in Paris. She traces their lives before and after the 1917 Revolution. In the Belle Époque, rich Romanovs spent large sums. They paid for homes and ways to spend their free time. Russian artists helped shape art in the city. Their work drew both praise and fierce debate.

The Bolshevik Revolution and civil war drove nobles from Russia. In Paris, many lost their wealth and high rank. They sold the things of worth they had brought. Once the money ran out, they worked in factories. Some drove taxis. Being poor and depressed led some to drink too much. Some took their own lives. Others found success in exile. Marc Chagall won fame for his art. Ivan Bunin won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933.

This book tells the lives of a group of people. It suits readers drawn to Russia’s past and lives in exile. Rappaport studies history, with a focus on the Romanov line. She traces pride, loss, hope and the fight to survive. Her accounts show Russians in Paris’s cafés, parks and streets. Dorina Tataran translated this edition from the English original, After the Romanovs.