‘The Winter Palace’ by Eva Stachniak

Reviewed by Hubert O’Hearn

“Don’t say too much. Watch out for those who ask too many questions. Follow the sweaty palms, the nervous looks. Remember that there are no safe places and no room can be entirely sealed. Do not believe the displays of kindness: All gifts and smiles are bribes.”

And so begins A Father’s Advice to His Daughter. Actually no it doesn’t. That is the warning in The Winter Palace given by Russian Chancellor Alexei Bestuzhev to the young servant girl Varvara, the latest addition to the network of informants and spies he utilized to influence the court of Empress Elizabeth. That advice is also the heart of Eva Stachniak’s masterful novelization of the early years of Empress Catherine the Great.

Those early years were no great shakes for Catherine, born Princess Sophia of Saxony. In that era of arranged marriages designed to seal alliances amongst nation-states, Catherine (we’ll stick with that name, although she did not assume it until her conversion to Russian Orthodoxy) first met her husband-to-be at the age of ten. She didn’t like him very much and except for the occasional thaw her opinion never much changed.

Mind you that husband, the briefly-ruling Tsar Peter III really didn’t want to be in Russia either. He was a Prussian Prince, a nephew of Empress Elizabeth, drafted in to be an heir to the throne. One might look at that as a pretty good deal except Peter’s heart belonged to Prussia, with his greatest admiration aimed towards its ruler Frederick the Great, who in turn launched the Seven Years War against Russia near the end of Elizabeth’s reign until Peter declared a truce. That truce led to the coup d’etat against Peter, and Catherine’s assuming the throne.

That very short capsule history of Russia in the mid-eighteenth century is included here for readers who know little or nothing about the great sprawling nation that stretches from Europe, across northern Asia to the Pacific. Those readers needing a refresher include most of us.

From a Canadian perspective (and I can’t imagine the American view being much different) we really don’t study much about pre-revolutionary Russia in our schools. But time did not start with the events at Ekaterinburg. By the way, do take a look at John Boyne’s excellent novel The House of Special Purpose if you are interested in the events surrounding the final days of the Romanovs. It remains puzzling that given the importance of both Russia and the USSR to foreign and domestic policy that we know so little about the events that shape its character.

This may or may not be an exaggeration, however the Russian court puts the endlessly studied, novelized, dramatized British royals to shame when it comes to intrigue, lust and lies. An amusing notion which just occurred to me is that if one kept the human drama precisely the same while substituting spaceships and phaser beams for carriages and swords, one would have a piece of science fiction that would dwarf Star Wars at the box office. Catherine the Great makes Princess Leia look like the Little Match Girl.

It is utterly amazing that Catherine ever became Empress. Chancellor Bestuzhev certainly did not want any Prussian Princess joining a Prussian Prince in the Imperial Bedroom. Peter, as noted earlier, didn’t want much to do with her either. If Eva Stachniak’s research is correct, he never consummated their marriage; others however did take on the job, as it were. When Catherine did produce an heir, the future Tsar Paul, he was literally taken from her before the after-birth had even cleared and given to his great-aunt, the Empress. Forget the Princess Leia comparison; Catherine’s story makes Lady Diana Spencer’s vanish into the trivial.

One gets hung up on the history, yet there is a novel here to discuss. The shrewdest move Stachniak made was in her invention of Varvara, the daughter of a Polish bookbinder who becomes a spy. This avoids the usual problem of historical novels, that being the awkward sense with third-party narration that things may not have happened this way. As Varvara is quite clear in establishing this as a work of memory, we accept her version of the truth. Further, as Varvara’s continued presence in the Imperial household depends on her effectiveness as a spy, and later as a confidante of Catherine, it makes perfectly good structural sense that she would witness all that she would witness.

In constructing Varvara’s character, Stachniak shrewdly includes the elements that would lead her to eventually cast her lot with Catherine. This was no foregone conclusion. Bestuzhev warns her— and the warning repeats many times in Varvara’s head— to always maintain loyalty to him. On the other hand, Elizabeth expected completely loyalty to herself, once Varvara was planted as a teller of secrets and gossip to the Royal ear. Bestuzhev and the Empress had the power, the Grand Duchess Catherine did not.

This is where those commonalities of character become crucial. Varvara and Catherine are roughly the same age and arrive in St. Petersburg in their early teens. Both have their names changed: the Polish Barbara to the Russian Varvara, and Sophia to Catherine. Both have arranged marriages to men they do not love, although it is fair to say that Varvara does at the very least come to a fond accommodation with her soldier husband Egor. Ultimately, they are both scared: scared and scarred. As such, no matter how close the friendship becomes there is always a sense that it all might fall apart at any time.

Stachniak does not over-burden The Winter Palace with the affairs of state; there are many, many affairs, just not a lot of the diplomatic variety. In some ways the entire novel is a foreshadowing or build-up to the next volume, wherein I expect Catherine starts the list of accomplishments that lead to ‘the Great’ being added as her descriptive. As an example, and this is historically accurate, Catherine and the future King of Poland, Count Stanislav Poniatowski were lovers and quite passionately in love at that. They also loved each other’s intellectual curiosity. Here, a scene as witnessed by Varvara, wherein the two have a moment together at a private party amongst trusted friends:

They read the same books; they admired the same philosophes. They agreed that wars could often bring about unforeseen progress. They declared their fascination with paradoxes: A man says, “I am lying.” Is his statement true or false?

True.

Then he is not lying.

False.

Then he is lying.

Neither true or false? But how is that possible? How can something be true and false at the same time?

Yes it always is back to that, now isn’t it? Now I do wish that Eva Stachniak had chosen one of the lesser-known paradoxes; the man who admits to lying is one known to most of us pretty early in life. Still it does underline the great irony of Catherine and Poniatowski’s relationship. They love each other. He spurs her interest in France which eventually leads Catherine to become quite the francophile. She sends troops into Poland to, shall we say, suggest it would be a good idea for the Poles to elect Poniatowski as King, which they do. Then later— and I am highly curious to see how this is handled in the next book— Catherine divides up Poland along with Austria and erstwhile enemy Frederick of Prussia. One can have many lovers, however there is only one throne.

Doubleday Canada | 464 pages |  $24.95 | paper | ISBN #978-0385666565