Title: The Winter Palace Series: Catherine #1
Author: Eva Stachniak
Published: October 23, 2012
Genre(s): Historical Fiction
Page Count: 480
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Her name is Barbara—in Russian, Varvara. Nimble-witted and attentive, she’s allowed into the employ of the Empress Elizabeth, amid the glitter and cruelty of the world’s most eminent court. Under the tutelage of Count Bestuzhev, Chancellor and spymaster, Varvara will be educated in skills from lock picking to lovemaking, learning above all else to listen—and to wait for opportunity. That opportunity arrives in a slender young princess from Zerbst named Sophie, a playful teenager destined to become the indomitable Catherine the Great. Sophie’s destiny at court is to marry the Empress’s nephew, but she has other, loftier, more dangerous ambitions, and she proves to be more guileful than she first appears.
What Sophie needs is an insider at court, a loyal pair of eyes and ears who knows the traps, the conspiracies, and the treacheries that surround her. Varvara will become Sophie’s confidante—and together the two young women will rise to the pinnacle of absolute power.
With dazzling details and intense drama, Eva Stachniak depicts Varvara’s secret alliance with Catherine as the princess grows into a legend—through an enforced marriage, illicit seductions, and, at last, the shocking coup to assume the throne of all of Russia.
Though The Winter Palace is advertised as being “a novel of Catherine the Great”, I’d be somewhat hesitant to agree. True, Eva Stachniak sets most of the story during the years after Catherine comes to Russia and immediately before and after her coup, I think it’s important to note that the first person narrator and true protagonist here is a young Polish woman named Barbara, who serves as a court spy. As a book about Catherine II, this book doesn’t do very well; as the story of a woman who plays an important role in the Romanov court, the novel does much better.
It’s not an uncommon technique, in historical fiction, to present the story of a famous figure through the lens of another character’s observations. It’s the kind of thing that either works or doesn’t, and in The Winter Palace, I’m of the opinion that it did work, though at the same time, I wouldn’t call this book a resounding success.
The problem, I think, is that Stachniak is trying to tell the story of two women here, and is somewhat limited. She can only reveal Catherine’s character so far as Barbara sees it, and Barbara’s own development is limited in that she often serves as nothing more than a window through which the reader can view Catherine. Because of this, I’m not sure that this book adequately develops either woman’s personality to the extent I would have liked. We see only an outside, distant view of Catherine herself, and our impression of Barbara is based upon the fact that, in the text, she is only ever thinking of or interacting with Catherine to some extent (since this is “a novel of Catherine the Great”).
That issue aside, I did appreciate the images of the Romanov court Stachniak provided in this book. The Winter Palace really captures the era and setting of Russia as known to the empresses Elizabeth and Catherine II. The court politics were well-illustrated and accurate, as were other, smaller details that added to the novel’s overall image. I really appreciate accuracy and attention to detail in my historical fiction, and I think the author managed to supply it here.
Speaking in terms of plot, I’d say that this is a very sweeping novel, in that it covers a period of some twenty years or so. We begin when Barbara is just a child in Poland, until her father is invited to Russia by then-princess Elizabeth, all the way until around the time Catherine begins her long term affair with Potemkin. We see Barbara adapt to various situations and setbacks, and by the time we close the book, it’s with satisfaction, as we see Barbara in middle age, having come into her own.
The Winter Palace, though far from perfect, is a very enjoyable historical novel. I really appreciated Stachniak’s focus on detail and the vivid picture of Russian court life offered to readers. Though lacking in characterization, I think there are other aspects that make up for it, leaving me with a fairly positive impression.
