My Russian Life. Memoirs of a High Society Lady, Wife of a Staff Aide to Nicholas II

The memoirs of high-society lady Maria Sergeevna Baryatinskaya, great-great-granddaughter of Field Marshal Suvorov, wife of the staff aide to Nicholas II, Anatoly Baryatinsky, meticulously reconstruct the nuances of court etiquette and ceremony. She recalls the solemnity of the coronation and the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, Europe at the beginning of the century. Baryatinskaya begins her narrative with the description of the death of Alexander III and the ascension of Nicholas II to the throne, tells about Rasputin and the assassination of Stolypin, the beginning of the war and how she organized the work of a military hospital in Kyiv. Maria Sergeevna carefully preserved records of important and fleeting events, the most valuable testimonies full of the unique charm of a lost paradise.