jan 1, 1977 - The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals | Norman Dubie

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The poem appears in Dubie’s 1977 collection The Illustrations. Many of the poems in the collection are told from the point of view of artists or historical figures or are about them.

The “Czar” in the title is Nicholas II, Russia’s last czar, who abdicated the throne in 1917 and was assassinated with his family by Bolshevik revolutionaries in 1918. It is in the form of Nicholas’ letter to his mother, Maria Fyodorovna Romanova, filling her in his life over the last year, how it was during captivity in the Ural Mountains, and recounting stories of his servant, wife and daughters. The poem addresses the changes occurring in Russia at the time, its movement from monarchy to communism, symbolized in the details he writes about his family. The Czar is concerned with not worrying his mother as he is with not telling the truth of their situation.

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