Tatiana: Five passports in a shifting Europe

By Tatiana Metternich

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0434465259
• ISBN13: 9780434465255
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Heinemann
• Length: 285 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The Death of Mittel Europa

This is a moving first hand account of Mittel Europa's suicide in the mid 20th century and the impact of the proceedings on a woman born to privilege and married into yet more privilege. What the book lacks by way of analytical insight and literary quality is rather more than made up for by the honesty and the immediacy of the account. The humanity of the account shines through the occasional purple prose and the numerous spelling errors - on all of which headings the author should have been well served by an astute editor. In the first instance, the book is a warning about the dangers of "grand ideas" in human affairs. Here the dangers witnessed at first hand by a woman of grace and nobility first in her native Russia, at the hands of the Bolsheviks, and then in her adopted Mittel Europa at the hands of the National Socialists. When institutions and customs of long standing are peremptorily destroyed and replaced by new fangled constructs, individual liberty inevitably destructs and the consequence is suffered by serf and prince alike. Not a new thought this. Any reader of Edmund Burke's speech on the French revolution is undoubtedly familiar with the main line of argument. And yet it is one thing to read the fine logic and the even finer rhetoric of Burke's oratory and quite another to see the human dimension of the argument. On this view, the non-analytical version presented in Tatiana is more moving, horrifying and edifying than Burke's oratorical flourishes in the English Parliament. In the final analysis Tatiana's is a story of hope. For it is a testament to the enduring existence of the European civilization and experience undamaged by the "grand ideas" of the pernicious 20th century. The aristocracy of the 19th century (and the inter-war years) may have been it previous embodiment and the EU its present manifestation but the civilization endures. Tatiana's life is a testament to not only the will of Europe to survive but also to do so with grace and panache. The barbarians may appear at the gate, they may breach the walls, they may even momentarily penetrate and occupy the citadel but they always fail to prevail. And Tatiana's story is a most delicious and gratifying paean to the triumph of Europe over its most recent barbarian invaders! The ones that came not across the steppes but arrived in the dead of the night by train into Finland Station and begot even more dangerous offspring in the Germanic lands.

A thrilling read from start to finish.

This book is absolutely unputdownable. A thrilling read from start to finish and very well constructed. The portion that deals with the author's journey at the very end of Word War II with her husband from their beautiful haven-like estate in Czechoslovakia to their bombed out estate on the Rhine is gripping. This delightful book shows a remarkable panorama of circumstances in which the author found herself, and she shows amazing courage and fortitude each time, and appears to be an amzingly adaptable human being. There is also a certain amount of wry humour in the Princess's writing style which is delightful.A wonderful book by a beautiful lady.