Robert K. Massie, a journalist and historian whose focus was on the Russian House of Romanov, and who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for his biography of Peter the Great, died on December 2, 2019 at the age of ninety. Along with a well-received biography of Catherine the Great, he was also known for his books about Czar Nicholas, the Tsarina Alexandra, and the final days of the Romanov dynasty in Ekaterinaberg in Siberia.
On November 4, 1995, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky had a chance to interview Robert K. Massie while he was on tour for his book, The Romanovs: The final Chapter, which dealt with events long after the Russian Revolution, from those claiming to be Romanov descendants to the disinterment of the Royal family’s bones after the Soviet Union fell.
The royal family, minus the two missing children, were formally reburied in St. Petetr and Paul’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg on July 17, 1998. They were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. The remains of the Tsaravich Alexei and his sister Maria were discovered in Siberia in 2007 and were eventually interred alongside their family and the rest of the Romanovs.
Massie’s description of the power of the Czars in relation to the Duma, the legislature of Russia at the time of the Revolution, sounds very Trumpian.