Robert K. Massie | |
|---|---|
| Born | Robert Kinloch Massie III (1929-01-05)January 5, 1929 Versailles, Kentucky, U.S. |
| Died | December 2, 2019(2019-12-02) (aged 90) Irvington, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Historian,biographer |
| Alma mater | Yale University University of Oxford |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 6 |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Service |  United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1950s |
| Battles / wars | Korean War |
Robert Kinloch Massie III (January 5, 1929 – December 2, 2019) was an Americanjournalist andhistorian. He devoted much of his career to studying and writing about theHouse of Romanov,Russia's imperial family from 1613 to 1917. Massie was awarded the 1981Pulitzer Prize for Biography forPeter the Great: His Life and World. He also received awards for his bookCatherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (2011).
His bookNicholas and Alexandra (1967) was adapted as a Britishfilm by the same name that was released in 1971. It starredLaurence Olivier,Michael Jayston, andJanet Suzman.
Massie was born inVersailles,Kentucky, to Robert Massie Jr., an educator, and Molly, née Kimball, an activist for progressive causes. He was raised there and inNashville, Tennessee. He earned degrees inAmerican studies fromYale University and as aRhodes Scholar atOxford University. While at Oxford, Massie played on theOxford University Men's Basketball Team. He served in the early 1950s as a nuclear targeting officer in theUnited States Navy, in the period during theKorean War.[1]
Massie worked as a journalist forCollier's and from 1959 to 1962 forNewsweek before taking a position at theSaturday Evening Post. He also taught atPrinceton andTulane universities.[1]
In 1967, after leaving theSaturday Evening Post to concentrate on his historical writing, Massie published his breakthrough book,Nicholas and Alexandra, an authoritative biography of TsarNicholas II (1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917) andAlexandra of Hesse (1872–1918), the lastEmperor and Empress ofRussia. His interest in theRussian imperial house had been inspired by the birth of his son,Robert Kinloch Massie IV, who was born withhemophilia. This hereditary disease also afflicted Nicholas's only son the TsarevichAlexei Nikolaevich, heir apparent to the imperial throne.[1]
His book was adapted for afilm with the same title, released in 1971 and starringLaurence Olivier andJanet Suzman. It won Academy Awards for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and was nominated for four others, as well as several Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards.
Massie and his wife Suzanne chronicled their personal experiences as parents of a hemophiliac child inJourney, published in 1975.[1] They had moved to France, and in the book they also discussed differences between the health care systems in the US and France.
In the 1990s, much new information about the Romanovs and Russian governments became accessible after the end of theCold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Russian and Soviet archives were opened to Westerners. In addition, the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and their children were exhumed from unmarked, hidden forest graves near their execution site. Their identities were confirmed byDNA analysis. Massie conducted additional research based on all this new information and publishedThe Romanovs: The Final Chapter (1995). In 1998 the Romanov family were reinterred after a state funeral in the restoredRussian Orthodoxcathedral at thePeter and Paul Fortress inSt. Petersburg, whose traditional name had been restored.[1]
Massie continued to write biographical books on the Russian Imperial family. He won the 1981Pulitzer Prize for Biography forPeter the Great: His Life and World.[1][2]
This was the basis of anNBC television network miniseries,Peter the Great (1986), which won threeEmmy Awards and starredMaximilian Schell,Laurence Olivier andVanessa Redgrave.[1]
In 2011 Massie publishedCatherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, about the TsarinaCatherine the Great.[1] It won the 2012 inauguralAndrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction[3] and the 2012PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography.[4]
He also published two books on the early 20th century:Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War (1991) is a diplomatic history over four decades on the causes ofWorld War I.[5]Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea (2003) on the role of the ships in the war.[1][2]
In other activities, from 1987 to 1991, Massie was President ofThe Authors Guild, and he served as anex officio council member.[6] While president, he called on authors toboycott any store that refused to carrySalman Rushdie'sThe Satanic Verses, which had been threatened by Islamic religious leaders.[7]
Massie was married toSuzanne Rohrbach from 1954 to 1990. They divorced after having a son and two daughters. He later married Deborah Karl in 1992; she was his literary agent. They also had a son and two daughters together. Massie died from complications ofAlzheimer's disease on December 2, 2019, at the age of 90.[1]
Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography (1976–2000) | ||
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