My Anastasia

Lisa Arsenault is an elementary-school teacher in Ajax, Ontario.

As the daughter of a poor Russian peasant in 1911, Dunia has come to
accept suffering as a fact of life. Her mother’s death, her father’s
drunkenness, and her stepmother’s abuse drive her away from home.
After wandering for five days in the forest, she comes to a village and
encounters Rasputin collapsed behind a tavern. Rasputin determines that
Dunia was sent to him by God and insists that she accompany him to St.
Petersburg.

Dunia discovers all the magic of modern life— trains, electric
lights, the telephone, and the like— but she also learns about
problems such as food shortages, striking workers, and political unrest.
Rasputin instals Dunia at the Tsar’s court, and it is not long before
she is intimately attached to the Romanov family. She lives with them
through all of the tension and turmoil leading up to the Tsar’s
abdication, and she remains with them under house arrest until their
final hours.

This is no fairy-tale version of Anastasia’s life and death. The
complexity of the historical background is presented through the
innocent eyes of the narrator, who gives a factual account of events
even if she doesn’t always understand the reasons behind them. The
strong descriptive writing creates an authentic picture of the Russian
landscape and the different palaces and retreats used by the Tsar. The
duplicity of Rasputin’s character is delicately handled, as is the
family’s eventual murder.

The biggest difficulty with My Anastasia is the lagging plot in the
latter part of the novel. The atmosphere of illness and anxiety,
together with a general sense of hopeless entrapment, is so strongly
evoked that it is almost claustrophobic. Another challenge is that the
Russian vocabulary may be frustrating to some readers, although it does
contribute to the story’s fine sense of historical realism. History
buffs will find this book well worth investigating. Recommended.