On the night of July 16, 1916, two very different groups of people stood on either end of a firing squad line. The character of both the gunman and his victims revealed itself in those final seconds, as eight guns became the border between weakness and dominance. Power, or the lack thereof, is very often the deciding factor between good and evil. Robert Alexander’s The Kitchen Boy examines the two sides of power as the novel follows the story of Misha and his account of the Romanovs final days. Misha first claims to be the imperial family’s kitchen servant, it is eventually revealed that he is in actuality one of the guards that claimed their lives. Misha struggles with extreme guilt for his actions—realizing that the man who pulled the trigger
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Often, it brings out the worst sides in people. The Romanovs became some of the most hated people in Russia after their abuse of power. However, after everything boiled down, the Romanovs were just normal people who had succumbed to the temptation of supremacy. Robert Alexander’s novel is just as much a story of redemption as it is a story of the evils of power. He portrays the Romanovs in a way that makes it almost impossible for one to hate them. Misha Semynov spends years trying to forgive himself after he has his own chance to experience the evils of power. It is easy to get lost in the allure of absolute control and dominance—to lose the person one had always been and mutate into something recognizable. The night of the execution, the Romanov family stood together in complete powerlessness, and the family’s murder resonated with many individuals because it was evident that the Romanovs had liberated themselves through the abandonment of their thirst for power. On the same night, a man fired a bullet that marked his own grasp at power—and it nearly destroyed him. However, his desire to save Grand Duchess Maria is his own shot at personal redemption. Robert Alexander’s The Kitchen Boy exposes that the best and worst sides of humanity a merely two ends of the same gun, but it also proves that everyone in this world, no matter victim or tyrant, has a chance at
Often, it brings out the worst sides in people. The Romanovs became some of the most hated people in Russia after their abuse of power. However, after everything boiled down, the Romanovs were just normal people who had succumbed to the temptation of supremacy. Robert Alexander’s novel is just as much a story of redemption as it is a story of the evils of power. He portrays the Romanovs in a way that makes it almost impossible for one to hate them. Misha Semynov spends years trying to forgive himself after he has his own chance to experience the evils of power. It is easy to get lost in the allure of absolute control and dominance—to lose the person one had always been and mutate into something recognizable. The night of the execution, the Romanov family stood together in complete powerlessness, and the family’s murder resonated with many individuals because it was evident that the Romanovs had liberated themselves through the abandonment of their thirst for power. On the same night, a man fired a bullet that marked his own grasp at power—and it nearly destroyed him. However, his desire to save Grand Duchess Maria is his own shot at personal redemption. Robert Alexander’s The Kitchen Boy exposes that the best and worst sides of humanity a merely two ends of the same gun, but it also proves that everyone in this world, no matter victim or tyrant, has a chance at