Red Princess

by Sofka Zinovieff

Book Overview

Born in 1907 in St. Petersburg, Princess Sophy "Sofka" Dolgorouky was born into a world of privilege and nobility--ten short years later, Sofka's world would crumble when the Tsar and his family were... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1605980099
• ISBN13: 9781605980096
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Pegasus Books
• Length: 346 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Life Of Intrigue And Incident

This life of Princess Sophy "Sofka" Dolgorouky was written by her granddaughter Sofka Zinovieff. It is a fascinating tale which spans most of the twentieth century and encapsulates much of the history of her Russian homeland during one of its most tragic eras. Princess Sofka Dolgorouky was born in 1907. Her father was a scion of one of the oldest and most noble Russian families, and her mother was a Bobrinsky, descended from Catherine the Great. Sofka spent her early years living in palaces and playing with nobility and royalty, including the Tsarevich himself. Her parents preferred to lead their own unconventional lives and passed their daughter off on their relatives. Then in 1917 everything changed. The ten year old Sofka witnessed the February Revolution in St. Petersburg, then fled with her Dolgorouky grandmother to the Crimea, thus avoiding being caught by the Bolsheviks after they took over and ensuring that she would be eventually rescued by a British warship. This colorful beginning set the stage for Sofka's long and eventful life. As a young woman she became one of the stars of exiled Russian society in London and Paris and embarked on a series of marriages and love affairs which lasted almost to the end of her days. Intelligent, with a social conscience aroused by memories of seeing peasants living in desperate poverty on her family's Russian estates, Sofka became a Communist (while maintaining many of her high society pleasures and contacts) and worked to bring about world wide revolution. During World War II Sofka went to Paris to try to rescue her equally wayward mother, ended up interned by the Nazis, then performed the most heroic actions of her life by helping Jews escape from Hitler's clutches. This bravery eventually earned her recognition by the Israelis at Yad Vashem. After the war Sofka continued her wayward life. Her granddaughter does her best to disguise it, but nevertheless the reader realizes that Sofka's final years must have been increasingly poorer, lonelier, and sadder. Sofka's life is endlessly fascinating, and I kept reading late into the night just to see what she would do next and how she would get out of one scrape after another. The book gains additional interest in that her granddaughter describes some of her own journeys and visits to places where Sofka lived. I appreciated knowing that the Bobrinsky and Dolgorouky palaces are still standing in St. Petersburg (though sadly changed and dilapidated) and that Sofka's favorite childhood view can still be admired there. I was also happy to find that the Dolgorouky name could still command attention in today's Russia, nearly one hundred years after that family fled for its life. The book could use an index, and sometimes it seems to jump a little too quickly from one friend/lover to the next, but that does accurately reflect Sofka's rather strenuous personal life. Its an enjoyable read for those interested in Russian or European history or for