House of Romanov - The flight of the Romanovs: a family saga

T his book is a project that has occupied the two of us for more than five years. In the course of pursuing research and writing we incurred obligations to many people whom we would now like to thank.

First of all we would like to thank staff members at a number of archives that have proved to be treasure vaults for our research: the Bakhmetieff Archives (Columbia University, New York), Connecticut College Archive (New London, CT), Fridjof Nansen Archives (University of Oslo), Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Archives of the Russian Federation, Moscow), the Hoover Institution Archives (Stanford, CA), Houghton Library (Cambridge, MA), Public Record Office (London) and Rossiisky Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Voenno-morskogo Flota (Russian State Naval Archives, St. Petersburg). We are grateful for the gracious permission of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to read and quote from archival materials at Windsor Castle.

For the illustrations our acknowledgments go to the Hoover Institution, Rossiiski Gosudarstvenny Arkhiv Kinophotodokumentov (Russian State Pictorial Archives, Krasnogorsk), Royal Library (Copenhagen), Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna, Princess Natalia Iskander and Alexander Zakatov. Alexey Maslennikov and Natalia Piliguda have also rendered us great help in finding and handling illustrations for the book.

This book would have been impossible to write, had there been no oral history available. Among the Romanov family members we would like to thank Prince Alexander Romanov, Princess Irina Bagration, Marusya Chavchavadze, Prince Dmitri Romanov, Olga Kulikovsky, Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna, Princess Natalia Iskander, Prince Nicholas Romanov and Prince Paul Ilinsky. Thanks are also due to a number of experts and witnesses interviewedPaul Grabbe, Rosemary Kerry, Vladislav Kostin, Princess Tatiana Ladyzhenskaya, Mikhail Moliukov, Rev. Nikon, Andrei Shmeman, Betty Tobias, Kyra Volkova Robinson, Angela Winthrop and Alexander Zakatov. Precious oral history interviews and also invaluable research trips were arranged by Elza Bilenko, Stanislav Dumin, Valery Maksimenkov, Rev. Nikon, Alexander Radashkevitch, Andrei Shtorkh, Alla Solovieva, Alexander Sumerkin, Mikhail Trubetskoi and Elena Zelenina.

For digging in the libraries and quarrying information, we are deeply grateful to Jacek Bylica, John Fargis, Nick Gill, Stephen Halsey, Kirstin Hill, Tim House and Stephen A. Lambo. For help in a wide variety of other matters relating to this project, we would like to note the kindness of Lady Sheila de Bellaigue, Jane R. Bredeson, Oliver Everett, Dallas Finn, Donald Foreman, Inger Marie Kromann Hansen, Frances Haviland, Louisa Illum, Bodil Ostergaard-Andersen, Ilga Paddock, Diane Windham Shaw, Lee Stookey, Lis Tarlow, Renate von Bulow Wilson, Keiko Usami and Hugo Vickers. We would also like to thank the library of the Norwegian Nobel Institute for an altruistic book-search for our project.