The rebel Romanov Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the empress Russia never had

For a tiny duchy in central Germany saddled with outrageous debt and powerful neighbors on the order of France and Prussia, cleverness was required for survival. Such was the position of Saxe-Coburg, derided by all as a "pumpernickel state." But the ambitious, canny Countess Augusta bore children whom she married into much grander royal families across Europe. Among them was her daughter Juliane, who landed Catherine the Great's grandson, Konstantin. The marriage was unhappy from the start, the young bride compelled to convert to Russian Orthodoxy and rechristened with a Russian name, Anna Feodorovna. Her husband turned out to be mercurial and violently abusive. Juliane eventually used illness as pretext to return to Saxe-Coburg and never returned to Russia. Tsar Alexander I declared the marriage annulled, and Juliane went on to bear several illegitimate children. Rappaport (After the Romanovs, 2022) revivifies this often forgotten and unique personality. Her detailed account of Juliane's 40-day journey from Saxe-Coburg to Saint Petersburg will make readers appreciate the rigors of overland travel at the close of the eighteenth century.

A storybook romance gives way to a marital nightmare and then a rebellious escape in this sparkling biography. Historian Rappaport (After the Romanovs) recaps the life of Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a German duke's daughter who in 1796 was married off at the age of 14 to 16-year-old Russian prince Konstantin Romanov. At first Julie was dazzled by Konstantin, but after the wedding she became the victim of his escalating psychopathy. (His bizarre cruelties included locking her in a room filled with mice and trying to rip off her dress in public.) Her parents were no help (instead pestering her for money), but in 1801, after rumors circulated that Julie was having an affair, czar Alexander I allowed her to leave Russia. She ended up in Switzerland, establishing herself as a charismatic socialite. Not granted a divorce until 1820, her affairs continued apace. High society was at first sympathetic but eventually grew scandalized when she had a child with a married doctor. Julie later came to be considered uniquely "lost" to history, as her siblings were all successfully married off by their strategically minded mother into powerful European dynasties. Rappaport provides an elegant study of how these machinations had a devastating personal cost for Julie, and how she fought back with freethinking attitudes about love. It's a captivating historical saga of a woman in revolt. (Apr.)

A woman caught in the whirlwind of history. British historian Rappaport continues her studies of the Romanovs with a detailed biography of Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1781-1860), an aunt of Queen Victoria. Because Julie destroyed a great deal of her correspondence, and a journal she apparently kept has never come to light, much of her life, Rappaport admits, "remains hidden from us." Nevertheless, Rappaport's extensive knowledge of Russian and European history and culture allows her to create an informative chronology of a woman who was at times manipulated, victimized, despondent, and defiant. At 14, the German princess was betrothed to Konstantin Romanov, the impulsive, erratic, often violent grandson of Catherine the Great. Both Catherine and Julie's mother, Duchess Auguste, favored the marriage, which marked an important political alliance and, for the financially strapped Coburgs, hoped-for access to Romanov wealth. Rappaport chronicles the arduous 40-day trip from Coburg to St. Petersburg, when Auguste brought three daughters for Konstantin and Catherine to choose among: When Konstantin finally made his selection, Auguste returned home confident that she had enacted a "glittering dynastic coup." Soon, however, Konstantin's rages, cruelty, and philandering led Julie to despair. Seeking any excuse to leave Russia, she finally succeeded in 1801, on the pretense of visiting her ailing mother. Although she vowed never to return, her family insisted she do so, fearful of severing ties to wealth. As Rappaport makes clear, Julie surely was not alone among women used as pawns in political machinations by "vultures of royal ambition," but her eventual divorce from Konstantin, in 1820, granted by her sympathetic brother-in-law Tsar Alexander, was a rare occurrence. Rappaport reveals Julie's affairs, two illegitimate pregnancies, and sustaining friendships: a life weathered within a context of war, assassination, disease, and betrayal. A brisk rendering of tumultuous times. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.