by Diana Mandache

Foreword by Dominic Lieven
(2004, Sutton Publishing, 224 pages, 53 illustrations
www.suttonpublishing.co.uk)

The granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Tsar Alexander II of Russia, Queen Marie of Romania was one of the most brilliant monarchs of the twentieth century.

She distinguished herself not only during the years of the First World War through her charity activities and through her informal political -diplomatic effort, but also because she was a gifted writer.

This recently discovered last volume of her memoirs, entitled ‘Later Chapters of My Life’ – long believed to have been destroyed – covers the period following the First World War, the economic recovery, and the new political configuration in reunited Romania. The 1919 Peace Conference – at which she informally represented the country’s interests, meeting Clemenceau, Poincare and Hoover, Queen Marie’s informal visits to Paris and London, where she stayed with George V and Queen Mary, and her visit in Transylvania, are broadly depicted in these lost chapters. The memoirs also contain other details about the royal family, her last meeting with her mother, the Duchess of Coburg, in Switzerland, the first parliament of Greater Romania, social reconstruction, and the charity activities co-ordinated by the queen.

Diana Mandache is a Romanian historian who specialises in the history of the Romanian royal family and Eastern European history. She is the editor of ‘Americans and Queen Marie of Romania’, and author of ‘Romania, Mitteleuropa si Balcanii’ [Romania, Central Europe and the Balkans]. She lives in London, UK.

Prof. Dominic Lieven, a member of the British Academy and well-known historian of Russia and Eastern Europe