The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

The first four chapters of The Kitchen Boy establish the novel’s narrative framework: The narrator (revealed to be a Bolshevik guard named Volodya in the Epilogue), who is assumed to be Leonka, witnessed the Romanovs’ assassination and wishes to explain what happened during summer 1918. These chapters also introduce the novel’s conflict: Volodya tries to trick his granddaughter into believing a false history to protect his and his wife’s true identities. Throughout the novel, it becomes both Kate and the reader’s responsibility to parse Volodya’s lies and their purpose. Here, Robert Alexander also begins to develop his themes of truth and lies, guilt and forgiveness.

Although The Kitchen Boy is a work of historical fiction, it does not provide much context for the Russian Revolution. Understanding the events surrounding the rise of the Bolsheviks and the fall of the Romanovs is particularly important for understanding the novel’s plot, symbolism, and themes. The Russian Revolution comprised several phases, the first being in March 1917. Alexander depicts the Bolsheviks as a party who stripped the Romanovs of power and banished them to the Russian countryside, but this was not the case. In March 1917, a series of protests—triggered by mass food shortages—caused the collapse of Russia’s imperial rule. The people formed a provisional government, comprised mostly of centrist and liberal statesmen; no radical Bolsheviks were involved. On March 9, 1917, it was the provisional government who ordered the Romanovs to be imprisoned in a country house. As World War I waged and Russia continued to suffer from mass food shortages and casualties, Bolshevik ideology took hold of the country. The Bolsheviks led a popular revolution advocating for workers’ rights, withdrawal from World War I, and a socialist government. The party assumed power on November 7, 1917; only then did they take over the preexisting plan to imprison the Romanovs. In summer 1918, a counterrevolutionary force arose called the White Army. The White Army hoped to unseat the Bolsheviks by fighting them in the Russian Civil War, which spanned from 1917 to 1923. It was during this war that the Bolsheviks ordered the assassination of the Romanovs. In The Kitchen Boy’s version of the story, Volodya and his fellow Bolsheviks use fake letters from the White Army to stoke the Romanovs’ hopes of rescue.

Alexander situates The Kitchen Boy in Russia’s post-Soviet era, which began in 1991 when communist rule collapsed. The novel’s simultaneous histories are achieved via a frame narrative (a story within a story). The story opens with a prologue: Katya (or Kate) meets a babushka (later revealed to be an older Maria) in 2001 and explains that her grandfather led her to the latter’s address. Back in 1998, Volodya records tapes for Kate, providing context for the story’s prologue. Most of The Kitchen Boy takes place in 1918, with Volodya narrating his version of the past. Alexander’s framework allows him to establish multiple settings and timelines within the first 30 pages. He also establishes his characters and the Romanovs themselves: Tsar Nikolai, his wife Tsaritsa Aleksandra, and their children Olga, Tatyana, Maria, Anastasiya, and Aleksei. The protagonist is introduced as Mikhail “Misha” Semyonov—or Leonka. Alexander foreshadows Leonka’s true identity through specific language. As Leonka recalls the terror unleashed in the wake of the Romanovs’ assassination, he wonders “If his comrades could commit such an act, was it any wonder that Stalin could kill upward of twenty million of his own people?” (4). “Comrade” was a term used by communists and those in the Soviet Union to refer to one another, signaling solidarity. It is unusual for a civilian outside of the Soviet Union—particularly one who supposedly hates the Communists as much as Leonka does—to use the term “comrade” in reference to Communists. Leonka’s use of the term suggests that he is an ex-Bolshevik, foreshadowing the reveal of his true identity: Volodya.

The Prologue is purposefully vague, prompting intrigue as to the identities of Kate, her grandfather “Leonka,” and the babushka. In the following chapters, the Romanovs receive their first fake letter, sparking the drama that dominates the novel’s 1918 narrative. The two mysteries come together at the end of Chapter 3—its last line reading “Gospodi Pomilooi—the Lord have mercy—the Romanovs all died because of me” (30). This quote inspires a series of questions—the answers to which drive the rest of the novel and provide its dramatic thrust.