The Rebel Romanov: Julie of Saxe-Coburg, the Empress Russia Never Had

 

The Rebel Romanov is a well written, layman accessible monograph biography/history of Julie of Saxe-Coburg written by historian Dr. Helen Rappaport. Released 15th April 2025 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. Paperback due out from the same publisher first quarter, 2026. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. 

Napoleonic (and post-Napoleonic) European royals were a dizzyingly interconnected lot, and the author does a pretty good job of untangling the interweaving threads. In the case of Julie of Saxe-Coburg, having been alllied into the Russian royal household, she was given a host of alternative monikers including Grand Duchess Anna Fyodorovna, Grand Duchess Konstantin, and diminutively as Jülchen to family. 

The author is an academic and this is a layman accessible history. As an academic work, it is *full* of annotations, references, and minutiae (in a good way). The author definitely "shows her work" in full. Especially considering that the bio subject is relatively obscure (even among royal records of the time period), this has clearly been a task requiring more than the usual level of dedication and reference chasing. That said, for readers who aren't dedicated to the history genre, the facts and family crossovers can be overwhelming (and necessarily a bit dry). Dr. Rappaport has included family trees and exhaustive chapter notes to help keep the players straight in the retelling.

Five stars. It's an exhaustive, very well annotated history of post-Napoleonic European noble houses, and interesting (if not quite riveting) biography of an interesting, willful, strong minded, strategic, and intelligent woman who made an effort to live her (relatively) long life on her own terms.

It would be an excellent choice for public or university library acquisition, home use, or possibly gift giving for recipients who are particularly interested in the subject matter and time period.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.