the Northern Messanger

Anyway that’s my review of it. I could go into detail about how much the production sucks, including rushed titles of who each character is and what year we’re jumping to constantly, or out of sync ADR, but I don’t have the time to list every poor decision they made

if you want something more fictionalized try Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s novels. He wrote one on Paul’s assassination and one on Alexander, as part of a larger trilogy (Царство Зверя). I’m not a fan of how he portrays them but it is quite a revered part of russian literature and most adaptations of this historical period draw from his works to some degree

also the monograph sounds really good since im writing an essay for fun comparing alexander and napoleon so yay

And I actually remembered another book you might like. It’s called People of the Winter Palace by Igor Zimin (Люди Зимнего Дворца). It’s about the daily lives of monarchs, their families and staff, and it covers Alexander’s rule as well. There’s a lot of interesting insight about the Romanov family lives so even though it’s not about Alexander per se it’s still a very interesting read

Guess the redraw

I imagine him writing this letter on his bed kicking his feet like a schoolgirl

but I know some actual russian historian who used to be a napoleonic reenactor and wrote a few books on Napoleonic wars but he’s in prison rn for killing and dismembering his girlfriend which might or might not have been caused by his beef with another russian historian who also wrote a book on napoleon but disagreed with him despite them both being huge bonapartists regardless

there was like a third napoleonic historian who also had beef with ponasenkov (because god forbid this man doesnt commit historical revisionism) and he wasnt a bonapartist--he was a communist! and to be honest, i think ill be him one day

And MAN the Sokolov trial case is more dramatic than Depp/Heard divorce. Ponasenkov actually showed up there talking about his book and making it all somehow about HIM even though he was accused of goading his fans to attack Sokolov and send him death threats (true) and Sokolov essentially blamed him for his frayed mental state at the time. Whole this was wild

It's really sobering to think that a lot of the men that I knew in the reenactment groups from the late 90s early 2000s are more than likely gone now, at least a few of them. One was rather old, and I'm sure he's gone on to his reward. You know when you've been in a period of history or a fandom as long as I have been, it just seems so surreal at times to see the younger crowd getting into it, and going oh my God I remember when. I don't remember the controversy, of the other reenactors that you guys are speaking of, but that was probably because from 2002 to 2012, I was really out of it into another period of history.

but I know some actual russian historian who used to be a napoleonic reenactor and wrote a few books on Napoleonic wars but he’s in prison rn for killing and dismembering his girlfriend which might or might not have been caused by his beef with another russian historian who also wrote a book on napoleon but disagreed with him despite them both being huge bonapartists regardless

there was like a third napoleonic historian who also had beef with ponasenkov (because god forbid this man doesnt commit historical revisionism) and he wasnt a bonapartist--he was a communist! and to be honest, i think ill be him one day

And MAN the Sokolov trial case is more dramatic than Depp/Heard divorce. Ponasenkov actually showed up there talking about his book and making it all somehow about HIM even though he was accused of goading his fans to attack Sokolov and send him death threats (true) and Sokolov essentially blamed him for his frayed mental state at the time. Whole this was wild

Adam Zamoyski on the Russian campaign in a debate “Napoleon the great?” with Andrew Roberts