A summary of "The Real Princess and Other Stories" by Boris Akunin

This collection of historical short stories was created in 2013. The text is based on notes from the writer’s personal blog. The author chronicles short stories about little-known episodes of the past, blending archival finds with political debates from late 2011 and early 2012. The work is part of the author’s "Love of History" series. The previous book is titled "The Most Terrible Villain." This text is the second in the series.

Empires and colonizers

The narrative begins with an analysis of empire-building. The author classifies conquests into three vectors: military, economic, and cultural. Only the cultural path of expansion is considered reliable. Russian explorers made unconventional attempts at territorial expansion. Doctor Anton-Georg Schaeffer arrived in Hawaii. He arbitrarily swore allegiance to the Russian monarch by the local ruler. The initiative collapsed. The Hanapepe River, temporarily renamed the Don, was renamed back. Another Russian doctor, Nikolai Sudzilovsky, known to the natives as Kauka Lukini, became head of the Hawaiian Senate. This man openly fought against American annexation.

The British administration in India tolerated the extravagant antics of the native rulers. Maharaja Bhupinder Singh was enraged by a car company’s refusal to sell him a new limousine. The monarch ordered the existing vehicles to be used to transport the city’s manure. The scandal-plagued car company quickly delivered the required equipment.

The Russian Empire was known for its leniency toward conquered elites. Georgian Queen Mariam stabbed Russian General Ivan Lazarev to death. Instead of a harsh execution, the royal personage was sent to a monastery. Comfortable living conditions for her family were preserved.

Forgotten names and unusual solutions

Historical chronicles preserve the memory of people with double lives. Scottish craftsman Dean Brodie worked as a respected cabinetmaker by day. By night, this gentleman burglarized wealthy homes. The criminal constructed door locks and opened them himself. Brodie inspired writer Robert Louis Stevenson to write the story of Dr. Jekyll.

After the siege of Port Arthur, Japanese military commander Nogi Maresuke asked the Emperor for permission to commit ritual suicide. The general blamed himself for the deaths of his soldiers. When his request was refused, he waited until the monarch died. Then, he and his wife committed suicide.

English engineer Joseph Jagger mathematically beat roulette. In 1873, he analyzed the statistics of the Monte Carlo casino. The technician discovered an imbalanced wheel and pocketed his winnings of two million francs. Belgian tycoon Alfred Loewenstein fell from his own plane over the English Channel from a height of 1,000 meters. The writer attributes this incident to a sudden, subconscious desire in a successful person to step into the abyss.

The author describes strong female characters. The French revolutionary Madame Roland wrote powerful texts for her minister husband. Before her execution by guillotine, she asked for paper to write down her final thoughts. The Indian princess Noor Inayat Khan served as a British radio operator in occupied Paris. The spy refused to betray her comrades and died in the Dachau concentration camp. The émigré Lili Sergeyeva worked as a double agent. She nearly disrupted the Allied landings in Normandy due to the death of her fox terrier, Babs, in an English quarantine.

Attention is paid to long-lived individuals. The Hoshi Ryokan hotel is recognized as the oldest commercial establishment on the planet. This Japanese business has been operating under the same family since 718. Timothy the tortoise became the longest-living animal in the world. The animal survived the Crimean War aboard a British frigate. He died in 2004.

Catacombs and vandals

The fear of oblivion drives people to scratch their names on monuments. This act of vandalism serves as the simplest form of personal eternity. The Bulgarian pilgrim Peter of Koprivshtitsa left an inscription on the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Similar autographs are found everywhere, from statues in the Louvre to ruins in Provence.

The frailty of the flesh is illustrated by the Parisian catacombs. The remains of millions of city dwellers were hauled to underground quarries. Another strange interaction with the dead occurred in Westminster Abbey. The mummy of Queen Catherine of Valois was put on display for a long time. The writer Samuel Pepys kissed the corpse on the lips. The British philosopher Jeremy Bentham willed that his body be stuffed. The embalmed figure sits in a wooden box at University College London.

The Monster of Gévaudan was on the loose in France. The cannibal killed dozens of local residents. Hunter Jean Chatel shot the beast. The animal’s body was 99 centimeters long. The writer speculates that the misanthrope Chatel deliberately trained the wolf-dog hybrid to kill people.

The destruction of unique texts is considered a grave sin. Lord Byron’s executors burned his candid memoirs. The widow of Earl Charles Mordaunt threw three volumes of his diaries into the fireplace. The world lost the memories of an adventurer who killed opponents in duels and conducted diplomatic affairs.

Literary curiosities and loyalty to the retinue

A hypothesis has been put forward that national languages were created by specific authors. Alexander Pushkin shaped the Russian language. Jean-Baptiste Molière fixed French. Soseki Natsume reformed Japanese, and Ivan Kotlyarevsky gave birth to the Ukrainian language.

Figures from the global publishing industry are cited. Spaniard Corin Tellado has published over four thousand romance novels. Charles Dickens’s "A Tale of Two Cities" has sold two hundred million copies. Nikolai Ostrovsky’s "How the Steel Was Tempered" holds the Soviet publishing record.

Mary-Ann Clarke led the fastest publicity campaign. She published a memoir featuring intimate letters from the Duke of York. The terrified aristocrat bought the entire ten-thousand-copy print run and paid the author a generous compensation.

The Trepov family of military men is described. The elder Trepov was a foundling found on the palace staircase. His son, Dmitry, authored a curious order for soldiers before Easter. An officer ordered his subordinates to hold an egg in their left hand. Then he hesitated and added the word "chicken" at the top. This same general commanded the executions of workers’ mobs.

The examples of loyalty to doomed monarchs are striking. Princess de Lamballe returned to revolutionary Paris to join Marie Antoinette. At her trial, she refused to swear an oath of hatred against the king. The crowd tore the aristocrat to pieces. Her head was carried on a pike to the prison windows. Four servants of the Romanov family also remained loyal. Doctor Evgeny Botkin, cook Ivan Kharitonov, maid Anna Demidova, and footman Aloisy Trupp voluntarily remained under arrest. They died with the Romanovs.

Political disputes and the search for a way forward

Part of the narrative is devoted to a debate with politician Alexei Navalny. The two discuss imperial ambitions and the essence of the nation state. Joseph Stalin’s tyranny is denounced. The writer’s opponent claims that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were cruel executioners of the Russian people. The author asks that the ghost of the dictator be buried deep.

Participants in the dialogue assess the positions of the Orthodox Church, the judicial system, and press freedom. The first steps to repair the state machinery are being formulated. Among them are judicial independence, term limits, and decentralization of government. Attention is focused on a tough anti-corruption campaign. The politician calls for telling the truth about the president’s friends and the intelligence generals whose children suddenly became bankers. The 100,000-strong rally on Sakharov Avenue is recognized as the ideal headquarters for civil resistance.

The writer recalls the events of August 1991. Waking up in Moscow, he saw tanks on Kalininsky Prospekt and indifferent lines for groceries. Suddenly, a huge crowd of Muscovites carrying tricolor flags came out to greet him. At that moment, the author felt for the first time that he was living in his own country. Readers are invited to answer questions about the civil war. The majority of voters admit that in 1918, they would have preferred to emigrate from Russia to escape the fratricidal slaughter.

The author turns to Evgeny Schwartz’s play "The Dragon." Russian society passively awaits the savior of Lancelot. The protest activity of the spring of 2012 is described, including the "Test Walk" of writers along Moscow’s boulevards. Writers Dmitry Bykov, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, and Andrei Makarevich called on city residents to march from the Pushkin monument to Chistye Prudy. The protest attracted thousands of citizens, defending the basic right to free movement throughout the city.

Moral choice and attitudes towards aging

In this intellectual game, the author plays the defense attorney for physician Josef Mengele. Rejecting the death penalty, the defense attorney requests that the criminal be sentenced to life in solitary confinement. A large screen with photographs of murdered prisoners must be constantly displayed in the cell. The tyrants’ swift demise is explained by the will of a higher power. God frees the wicked from earthly judgment for a harsh retribution in the afterlife.

Blog readers discuss their attitudes toward charity. They mention street scammers faking pregnancy or intestinal illnesses. The overwhelming majority admit to giving money out of pity or to ease their conscience. Another survey revealed that the target audience considers integrity and nobility to be the most beautiful qualities in a person.

Women’s ability to embrace aging is explored. Artist Constance Meyer slit her throat with a razor at age forty-six, terrified of physical decline. The renowned actress Greta Garbo voluntarily confined herself to her four walls. Actress Lillian Gish, on the other hand, acted in films until she was ninety and lived comfortably to be a hundred.

English aristocrat Lady Mary Wortley Montagu chose the perfect algorithm. In her youth, she contracted smallpox and lost her beauty. This educated lady brought vaccination to Europe. She lived by her own rules, avoided boredom, and traveled the world. Before her death, the seventy-year-old Lady Montagu uttered the phrase, "It was all very interesting."