Coryn Hall presents us with a new and accessible biography of Empress Maire Fedorovna, who was married to Tsar Alexander III of Russia, and mother to Nicholas II . This insightful work—the first in over 40 years and the first in English—traces the empress's tragic life from little known daughter of the King of Denmark, to integral part of the Russian imperial family, through revolution and ruin. The most senior member of the dynasty to survive the Bolsheviks, her word was law among the emigrés and her influence paramount among the surviving Romanovs. She had truly become Matoushka, the mother of the Russian People. She died in Denmark, a tragic relic of a bygone age.
Coryne Hall is an expert on Russian history and a regular contributor to Royalty Digest and European Royal History Journal.
"[Hall's] genealogical expertise illustrates the complex relationships of the royal Danish and imperial Russian families. [She] offers a sympathetic picture of the imperial Russian family, although she does not gloss over her subject's occasional pettiness and selfishness. She reminds us that the Romanovs were all too human."—John T. Alexander, The Historian
"Hall has answered the need for a new, just, and accessible biography of Empress Marie Fedorovna .... Hall is generous and insightful in analyzing the relationship between the extroverted Marie and her reserved daughter-in-law, Empress Alexandra."—Brad Hooper, Booklist
"This book vividly illustrates the tragic life of Maria 'Dagmar' Feodorovna and is a must-read for any student of Russian history."—Bookideas.com
“If you like to know about places, from the State Rooms of palaces to the cozy corner beloved of nineteenth century royalty, if you want to know who was where, and what they wore, and what they did, if you like descriptions of dresses and jewelry and Court ceremonial, you could want no better than this. That said, Coryne Hall does offer a very good, and critical, picture of Maria Fedorovna’s life as Dowager Empress, of her travels and her Danish existence at Hvidøre, and of the lives of her younger children.”—Royalty Digest
“Little Mother of Russia, the first biography in English of this remarkable and largely forgotten woman for 40 years, is factual enough to educate, while entertaining enough to grab your imagination and keep the average reader’s interest.”—The Herald
