Click the cover to find this book on Amazon.
If there is one book that I wish I had been able to read when I was researching my biography of George Calderon, it is the one above, published last year.
A quarter of it (pp. 231-336) deals with the visit by Nicholas II and his immediate family to Britain, more precisely the Isle of Wight and its Roads, in August 1909. Stephan Roman examines it in meticulous detail, even devoting a chapter to each day that the imperial yacht was anchored there with its Russian naval escort, Edward VII’s own yacht, and the entire British fleet off Spithead. This visit created such a public furore and interest in Russia that I am willing to believe that up in Hampstead it persuaded theatre manager Alfred Wareing and George Calderon that now was the time to launch the first production of a play by Chekhov in Britain, George’s translation of The Seagull three months later at Glasgow Repertory Theatre. Yet I completely overlooked the Tsar’s visit!
The event exemplifies Edward VII’s ‘facilitatory’ role in European diplomacy before 1914. British Socialists and Liberals, as well as the numerous Russian political exiles, bitterly opposed the tsar’s visit. In Parliament, the leader of the Labour Party, Arthur Henderson, excoriated the autocracy’s human rights record and demanded the Liberal government withdraw the invitation. But it had already been decided that this would be not a state visit, but a family visit by a nephew to his uncle (Edward VII), hence the invitation was not to visit London, but the Isle of Wight…which, conveniently, had been both the British royal family’s playground and ‘the apex of an imperial world’ (p. 19) since Queen Victoria and Prince Albert arrived there in 1844 and rebuilt Osborne House. So whilst the King hosted the visit, the British prime minister, foreign secretary and other prominent figures travelled down to the Isle of Wight to conduct their political business.
The ‘business’ was nothing less than to seal a long-prepared alliance with Russia and France which might deter German expansionism. On the outbreak of war, this ‘Triple Entente’ became a military alliance. So the ‘family visit’ was fantastically important, even though the public did not understand it at the time. The British press went mad with articles about Russian fashion, home life and cooking, ‘there was an equal interest in the […] culture of Russians’ (p. 267), and crowds flocked to the Isle of Wight for a glimpse of the Tsar, his enigmatic wife and their ‘lovely girls’ as William Gerhardie described them (they are now strastoterptsy, a special class of Russian Orthodox saints). It seems pretty clear that it was this stellar media event that led to the British ‘Russia mania’ which is conventionally attributed to the 1911 visit by Ballets Russes, and that the latter was an effect not cause. Like it or not, Russia was now our ally.
This blockbuster is really four stories, each of them absorbingly told. First we have the history of Russian royal visits to Britain and the Isle of Wight since Peter the Great’s visitation of Deptford in 1698. Here, for me, the revelation was how many future tsars had lived in Britain before a single British monarch or Prince of Wales travelled to Russia (in 1994). Then there is Nicholas II’s 1909 visit. This moves seamlessly into the story of the rest of his reign and the tragedy at Ekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. Finally, there is the enclosing story of Stephan Roman’s grandparents’ terrifying escape from the Cheka to Romania in 1922; the whole work is quite rightly dedicated to their memory and ‘the millions of Russians who […] were destroyed by the collapse of the Romanov dynasty’ (p. 392). At a time when an understanding of the longue durée of Russo-British relations could hardly be more relevant and instructive, I thoroughly recommend this book as your holiday reading.
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SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
Related
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Captain of the 11
George Calderon, 1912
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George Calderon c.1901
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
The Isle of Wight Entente of 1909
Click the cover to find this book on Amazon.
If there is one book that I wish I had been able to read when I was researching my biography of George Calderon, it is the one above, published last year.
A quarter of it (pp. 231-336) deals with the visit by Nicholas II and his immediate family to Britain, more precisely the Isle of Wight and its Roads, in August 1909. Stephan Roman examines it in meticulous detail, even devoting a chapter to each day that the imperial yacht was anchored there with its Russian naval escort, Edward VII’s own yacht, and the entire British fleet off Spithead. This visit created such a public furore and interest in Russia that I am willing to believe that up in Hampstead it persuaded theatre manager Alfred Wareing and George Calderon that now was the time to launch the first production of a play by Chekhov in Britain, George’s translation of The Seagull three months later at Glasgow Repertory Theatre. Yet I completely overlooked the Tsar’s visit!
The event exemplifies Edward VII’s ‘facilitatory’ role in European diplomacy before 1914. British Socialists and Liberals, as well as the numerous Russian political exiles, bitterly opposed the tsar’s visit. In Parliament, the leader of the Labour Party, Arthur Henderson, excoriated the autocracy’s human rights record and demanded the Liberal government withdraw the invitation. But it had already been decided that this would be not a state visit, but a family visit by a nephew to his uncle (Edward VII), hence the invitation was not to visit London, but the Isle of Wight…which, conveniently, had been both the British royal family’s playground and ‘the apex of an imperial world’ (p. 19) since Queen Victoria and Prince Albert arrived there in 1844 and rebuilt Osborne House. So whilst the King hosted the visit, the British prime minister, foreign secretary and other prominent figures travelled down to the Isle of Wight to conduct their political business.
The ‘business’ was nothing less than to seal a long-prepared alliance with Russia and France which might deter German expansionism. On the outbreak of war, this ‘Triple Entente’ became a military alliance. So the ‘family visit’ was fantastically important, even though the public did not understand it at the time. The British press went mad with articles about Russian fashion, home life and cooking, ‘there was an equal interest in the […] culture of Russians’ (p. 267), and crowds flocked to the Isle of Wight for a glimpse of the Tsar, his enigmatic wife and their ‘lovely girls’ as William Gerhardie described them (they are now strastoterptsy, a special class of Russian Orthodox saints). It seems pretty clear that it was this stellar media event that led to the British ‘Russia mania’ which is conventionally attributed to the 1911 visit by Ballets Russes, and that the latter was an effect not cause. Like it or not, Russia was now our ally.
This blockbuster is really four stories, each of them absorbingly told. First we have the history of Russian royal visits to Britain and the Isle of Wight since Peter the Great’s visitation of Deptford in 1698. Here, for me, the revelation was how many future tsars had lived in Britain before a single British monarch or Prince of Wales travelled to Russia (in 1994). Then there is Nicholas II’s 1909 visit. This moves seamlessly into the story of the rest of his reign and the tragedy at Ekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. Finally, there is the enclosing story of Stephan Roman’s grandparents’ terrifying escape from the Cheka to Romania in 1922; the whole work is quite rightly dedicated to their memory and ‘the millions of Russians who […] were destroyed by the collapse of the Romanov dynasty’ (p. 392). At a time when an understanding of the longue durée of Russo-British relations could hardly be more relevant and instructive, I thoroughly recommend this book as your holiday reading.
ADVERTISEMENT
SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
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