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A Conversation with Robert Alexander (continued)

As a writer of historical fiction, what do you believe are the potential pitfalls or common missteps in basing novels on true events? How does one achieve a balance between historical accuracy and engaging plot?

Authors of historical fiction have to be honest to the period they are writing about—readers understand and appreciate that integrity, and are, well, too smart to value anything but. Simply speaking, you couldn't write a book about the sinking of the Titanic and set it in the Pacific Ocean or write a novel about the assassination of President Kennedy and set it in New Orleans, just as you couldn't write about the Russian Revolution taking place in 1930. You have to accept and appreciate the parameters of the historical events you're writing about and stay within that framework. It sounds easy but you'd be surprised how many writers stray too far into their imaginations.

I also think basing a novel on true events requires an incredible amount of research to the point that you know that period as if you had been there. And then you just have to forget about everything you learned and simply write a good story as if you were an eyewitness and not a researcher because nothing sinks a book more quickly than too many stupid little facts dolled out too heavily. As in cooking, too little salt and the food is dull and uninteresting, too much and it's inedible, but just the right touch and it brings out all the flavors.

I should say, too, that I do love what Matisse said: “Exactitude is not truth.” In other words, if you were to paint a picture of a chair, you might better capture the way it looked in the sunlight on that beautiful spring day by painting it not brown, it's real color, but a brilliant, overwhelming blue because that better captures the essence of the gorgeous moment. So I think it's okay to create and use your imagination to its fullest as long as its respectful to the actual events. In The Kitchen Boy I had to be very specific about what happened on this day or that in 1918 because so very many know exactly what happened during the last days of Nicholas and Alexandra. But I could—and I did—write about their youngest servant, the real kitchen boy, surviving because, well, he did…and yet who knows what happened to him after July 17th, 1918?

Simply, you can't change the facts just to make a story “better.” However, there's an awful lot of space between the facts, and that area is a wonderful and fun place for a fiction writer to swim. It helps, too, if you're writing about fascinating people in a drama-filled period such as the Russian Revolution.

You manage to present multifaceted, sympathetic characters on both sides of this political divide. Was it difficult for you to give equal time to both Elisavyeta and Pavel? Did you find you sympathized more with one than the other?

There's always a root cause to a revolution, and it's usually because the majority of a population isn't given a place at the table, in other words a forum for their grievances to be heard. And prior to the revolution the vast majority of Russians had no voice whatsoever and were demanding things that any American now takes for granted, such as equality for all before the eyes of justice, a 40 hour work week, child labor laws, and so on. The Russian Revolution had been brewing for at least 150 years—Pugachev led a peasant revolt in 1773, there was the Decembrist Uprising in 1825, and a number of other peasant revolts as well—and it's a tragedy that rather than deal with the real causes of unrest when they happened, the tsarist regimes of those days dealt with them by forceful suppression. So I have a great deal of sympathy for the discontent that permeated Russia in the early 1900s—though I fully realize that the flames of the Russian Revolution were fanned to a huge degree not by truths but revolutionary propaganda.

Obviously, I have a great deal of sympathy for Elisavyeta as well as, for that matter, all the other Romanovs. Yes, the entire Ruling House benefited absurdly from tsardom, but they inherited not just a style of government—autocracy—that was grossly outdated, but a heap of problems that those before them had not addressed. And yet all you have to do is read the numerous diaries and letters left behind to understand that the Romanovs as a whole ultimately wanted was what was best for Russia. They just didn't know how and/or have the leadership skills to make that transition. None of the nearly 70 members of the House of Romanov, however, worked harder to address the needs of the poor and needy than Grand Duchess Elisavyeta, and I have immeasurable respect for her and the very way she put her good intentions into actual good deeds.

So it was not difficult at all for me to give equal time to Elisavyeta and Pavel. In fact it was really interesting, and creating the story was rather like watching a car accident from above—if only he put on the brake here, or she swerved there, then this great mess wouldn't have happened. Yes, the Russian Revolution was one of the greatest tragedies in world history not only because so many millions perished, but because the whole damned thing didn't need to have happened in the first place, it could have been avoided, and very nearly was.

But in the end, though Pavel was so terribly misled (just as were so many revolutionaries), I sympathized infinitely more with Elisavyeta because she died true to her remarkable integrity and beliefs.

Pavel uses extremely violent means in overthrowing the Romanov rulers; at various moments, the revolutionaries resort to assassinating leaders, distributing propaganda, and inciting riots. Do you see any parallels in today's political climate? Were you concerned that Pavel's participation in such acts would prevent readers from identifying with him?

The Russian political stage in 1917 was set something like this: a huge disenfranchised population that was incited to violence by slanted information and misinformation created by a desperate, conniving few. So, yes, the parallels to today's political climate are all too many. But then again, history tends to repeat itself, and it's only the gifted leaders that appreciate and recognize that and are able to truly advance the world.

I do believe, though, that people are born essentially good and that it's only events and/or situations that corrupt and darken the soul. And that's what I tried to do with Pavel, not create a character whose violent acts the reader might or might not condone, but create a character, who despite his earnest (and understandable) search for betterment makes a number of tragic and dark decisions, which ultimately lead to his own demise, and who, because of that, becomes a sympathetic character.

At one point in the story, Pavel refers to Lenin as a traitor. Was this disillusionment common among the revolutionaries? When did these feelings develop and why?

With the rapid demise and abdication of Nicholas II, Russia was a great ship with no one at the rudder, an empire utterly adrift in a tumultuous political sea. Without a tsar to head the government, what and who was there? The main question wasn't simply who was running the government, but what type of government was now going to run Russia—a constitutional monarchy, democratic, socialist, communist, or? There were dozens of splinter groups, but only two things that were absolutely certain, that the days of autocracy were over and that the Germans, with whom Russia was at war, were the sworn enemies of the Russian Motherland.

Therefore, when it was leaked that Lenin had actually been slipped back into Russia by the Germans (who hoped that the revolutionaries would weaken Russia), well, many in Russia began to see Lenin not as a patriot but as a ruthless schemer willing to betray his fellow countryman for the sake of his own political ambitions. In other words: a traitor. Disillusionment with Lenin and Bolshevism further grew with his creation of the secret police, the Cheka, and the commencement of The Red Terror, which suppressed all dissent with violent brutality. It was an incredible murder spree—stories abounded of hundreds of thousands hacked, tortured, burned, and shot to death, as well as drowned and buried alive. Utterly unbelievable.

Both Elisavyeta and Pavel are characters of passionate devotion—Elisavyeta to her husband and her religion, and Pavel to his wife and his politics. What connections do you draw between romantic, religious, and political fervor?

Passion and devotion are a volatile cocktail, a blinding one at that. And when one can't see the way, isn't it easy to get lost, to lose all perspective? Frankly, this is all scary territory for me. Romantic fervor turns into blind love, religious fervor turns into blind faith, and political fervor, well, at the least it spells intolerance and at the worst dictatorship. In a way all of these things speak to the human need or want to find one truth and one person who will show you the way along one path. And that's wonderful as long as it's not exclusionary, as long as it doesn't come at the expense or detriment of others. In other words, all of that is fine as long as tolerance is cherished above all.

One of the most interesting things to me about the Soviet Union was that this supposedly great nation and social experiment was the least tolerant country and political system of all. There was no room for political discussion, no tolerance for other parties. You either went along with the Party line…or you were, all too often, killed. That meant that the Soviet Union was a fake, a fragile superpower that could only exist in a vacuum of dissent and a vacuum of information. But once that vacuum was pierced—initially by student, cultural, and business exchanges—there was this great flood of information that came whooshing into the USSR, which enabled even the average Soviet citizen to imagine a different and potentially better way of living. I think the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union began with the first cultural exchange in 1958, and the beginning of the end of communist China began with that first ping pong match. We'll see if the beginning of the end of North Korea just started with the recent performance there by an American Orchestra.

How do you see this novel in relation to The Kitchen Boy and Rasputin's Daughter? Are there particular themes or issues you are consistently drawn to?

I think there are many truths in life, not just one. For example, all too often the spoken truth and the unspoken truth aren't one and the same. In other words, there are many layers to life and it takes a heck of a lot of work to peel away those layers. It's like peeling an onion, often it can make you cry, but it's the most important thing in life, getting to that core, that brilliant gem of truth. And to understand that gem and appreciate all the dimensions of its beauty, you have to look at it from any number of angles. In simplistic terms, to understand what happened in a crime—a murder, for example—you want to talk to multiple eyewitnesses, because even though they witnessed the same crime they all saw different things. And each of those things are different truths, which combined create a full picture, or understanding, of what really happened.

So I guess that's what I'm trying to do in writing historical novels about the Russian Revolution, explore the many truths of the key players, such as Nicholas and Alexandra, Rasputin, and of important eyewitnesses, such as Grand Duchess Elisavyeta. They were all there at the heart of the Revolution, “witnessing” the same events but from different perspectives, and struggling attempt find the correct and best path for their beloved country.

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