Eurohistory. The European Royal History Journal, Vol. 18.4, August 2015

Issue CVI (Volume 18.4) of Eurohistory. The European Royal History Journal arrived in mid-December, but I didn't find any time to read it before I traveled back to Oslo yesterday. But what can be better than to be able to read without disturbance on a plane? Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom made the front cover this time, as she on Wednesday 9 September 2015 became the longest-reignng British monarch ever, thus overtaking her great-grandmother Queen Victoria's record. And can you believe it, next year Queen Elizabeth will celebrate her 90th birthday. The first article of the present issue, A Historic Milestone, written by Katrina Warne and Arturo E. Beéche, naturally enough focuses on the record-breaking queen. Should I add a critical comment, it would be that – at last to me – it would be make more sense if the article was published in the October issue rather than the August issue, but I might be too pedantic now. Anyway, the other articles included are as follows:

• Crown Prince Rupprecht. The Best King Bavaria Never Had (Part II) by Coryne Hall
• Who Is In the Photograph. The Kents by Ilana D. Miller
• Beatriz, Jaime and Juan. Spanish Royal Marriages in 1935 by Marlene A. Eilers Koenig
• The Extraordinary Life of Princess Catherine Radziwill. Perfect Liar (Part II) by Greg King and Janet Ashton
• Obituary. HRH the Prince of Tirnovo by Arturo E. Beéche
  

Regarding Ilana Miller's photo article, the photo she has chosen as a starting-point for her article shows Princess Alexandra, the Duchess of Kent (i.e. Princess Marina), Prince Michael and (current) Duke of Kent.The article includes 6 more photos, I should add.

Greg King and Janet Ashton's article is an analysis of the princess' writings about the Romanovs. The article includes "factual evaluations of some of her claims, pointing out where she demonstrated intimate information, where she slipped into opinion, and where she let spite overtake the truth". The authors continue to say that "we don't pretent to cover each and every contention, whether true or false. In so doing, we also look at the environment in which any given work was published, examining issues of consistency and how she slanted her presentation to accord with contemporary events and attitudes".

Even if not as entertaining as the first part (see my coverage of Volume 18.3), it is nevertheless a thorough and interesting exercise, and I look forward to reading part III.

This time I would like to give three cheers to Coryne Hall, who this time have found time to review as many as 5 publications:

• Go-Betweens for Hitler by Karina Urbach (Oxford University Press, 2015, ISBN: 9780198703662)
• Michel Romanoff de Russie. Un destin français by Anna Toscano (Editions l'Harmattan, Paris), 2014, ISBN 9782343048475)
• Royal Love Stories by Gill Paul (Ivy Press, 2015, ISBN 9781782401506) 
• The Queen's Speech. An Intimate Portrait of the Queen in Her Own Words by Ingrid Seward (Simon & Schuster, 2015, ISBN 9781471151545)
• Treasures From the Royal Archives by Pam Cllark, Julie Crocker, Allisson Derrett, Laura Hobbs and Jill Kelsey (Royal Collection Trust, 2015, ISBN 9781909741041) 

The publisher should also be applauded for giving so much space for book reviews, especially now when the other royalty magazine, Royalty Digest Quarterly, without any explanation seems to have stopped including them.* For more book reviews, see Marlene Koenig's blog Royal Book News.

Finally the Royal News section gives the readers an update of events in Austria (Tuscany), Baden, Georgia, Hohenzollern, Lippe, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Spain, the United Kingdom, Salm-Salm, Solms-Hohensolms-Lich and Toerring-Jettenbach.

I often forget to comment on the back cover. This time it shows a nice photo of Prince Kardam of Bulgaria (the Prince of Tirnovo) and his wife Miriam, née Ungria y López. Prince Kardam died on 7 April 2015.

The publisher of The European Royal History Royal can be reached at erhj [at] eurohistory.com.

For earlier articles on the magazine, please go here.

* Postscript 29 December 2015 at 23:30. The above was written before I read the last issue of Royalty Digest Quarterly.