cameron taking questions. obama speakst about the mass shooting in orlando, florida. later, republican lawmakers at the conference here in -- here in and easy washington, d.c. announcer: this week on q&a, author simon sebag montefiore. ,e discusses his book "romanovs." dynasty thathe ruled russia for over 300 years. brian: simon sebag montefiore, the book is called the "romanovs." 1613-1918. i want to read your headline. the "london daily mail."

you wrote this back in january. the scandal of the married tsar and his 16-year-old mistress revealed in the raunchiest love letters ever written by a head of state. -- [chuckles] i did not actually wrote that. that's the headline by the "daily mail". but it is the most outrageous and most explicit correspondents ever written by a head of state. i have to say the correspondence is so outrageous that they added -- edited the daily mail. they rang me up. they said we're a tabloid newspaper. we can't print this stuff. we're a family newspaper. brian: who was it? who was the head of state? wasn: the head of state tsar emperor alexander the ii. the emperor who liberated the serbs the slaves of russia. and exactly at the same time 1861 as your president lincoln was about to liberate the slaves

of america, the two men were in correspondents. -- in correspondents. both of them were bus and -- both of them were assassinated. so, in interesting relationship. alexander ii was the sympathetic of all the romanovs of this book. and he also brought in jury trials and local electorate assemblies. he lays down the foundation for reform. he wanted to bring in a constitution which is the last proper chance to bring it in. but he was assassinated the day he was going to bring the constitution. as for the love life, that's another thing all together. brian: let me ask you first, what did you find the love letters? simon: they're in the russian archive in moscow. in interesting story there, because these love letters have never been worked on by any historians before.

because they were only recently returned to the russian archives when alexander ii was assassinated. his widow, his mistress, princess katya left to paris. she took 3,000 of outrageous letters. they remained in private hands until 1998. and in 1998, the rothchild family bought these letters. why? because in 1945, the red army had captured when they took berlin and vienna but captured the archives and they took them back to moscow. and they wanted to swap. and the russians agreed. so the rothchild's got their banking archives, which aren't very interesting i am sure. but moscow got these letters. and they're love letters between a 40-something-year-old emperor and his young schoolgirl, 18-year-old mistress when they met and they started their affair. their passionate, poignant,

they're increasingly political. and they are highly uninhibited and sexual. in fact, there is stuff in these letters that i did not even know was invented. i thought it was invented in the 21st century. but you'll have to read them to know what i'm referring to. brian: so this article doesn't have all the racy stuff in it? simon: it doesn't have all the racy stuff in it because some of it is very racy even by the standards of 2016. brian: how long was alexander ii the emperor? simon: he was emperor from 1855 to 1881. was he assassinated? simon: well, it was a tragedy. he believed in reform. he showed real political skills. but he raised expectation for reform of all which he was not -- reform of a talker see which he was not willing to fulfill.

this caused a backlash that led to a terrorist movement demanding destruction. the terrorists hunted him like a wild animal. he believed because his mistress was there on the first time of his assassination attempt he believes that she was his guardian angel. there were six attempts to kill him. but she could not save him. when he came to 1881, they had been together for all of these years. the bomb was thrown at his carriage. he was fine. the carriage with smash. it he got out and he inspected the dead in wounded. his guards and said, please, get back in the carriage. please. and he said no, i want to inspect. i am the emperor. and there was one more terrorist and one more killer. his threw the bomb right at

feet and blew his legs to smithereens. he was taken back to the winter palace. one of the people who saw him die was the little boy who became nicholas the second, his grandson. brian: in reading your book, i just kept asking how does this man remember all this? i probably could get here and find a statistics you wouldn't remember. what technique do you use in order to put all this together? i want you to eventually get into how many romanovs there were. simon: writing these books is a huge talent and it's a nightmare. for some reason i have a taste for doing these. it's 20 or 21 romanov princess. czarina's, ampersands, emperors. it covers so many years. single imagine, every monarch in this book has their children, their wives, their poetssses, they are great

and composers. all of them have to be mastered. writing these books is one hell of a mental challenge i must say. i have to immerse myself in the subject. i only read about this subject. obviously afterwards we can't wait to read some james l. wood's thriller. when i just work my way from the beginning, rain by rain and when each we one i lead all the books on the subject first of all. i get all of the books and journals that have been published in russian. in then ultimately, i go to russia and walk around the palace and look at the archives and then i move on to the next monarch.

journals. and then ultimately i go to russian and walk around the pa lances, look at the archives and then when i feel i've got enough, i move on the next, to the next monarch. brian: you were here last in 2004, and we also did an interview peter slim did in london. i want to put it up on the screen. the number of nonfiction books you've written. so that the audience can know the kind of thing i've been involved in. we go back to the first one in 2001. stalin the coy of the tsar which we talked about in three. simon: you say romanovs. you say romanos. simon: the russians say romano. but we english say romanov. it doesn't matter. you mentioned the rothchild's. this is a 2008 "vanity fair"

article that undoubtedly you remember in which a friend of yours the honorable hannah rothchild, who is she. simon: she's a novelist and writer. she's head of the british museum. the very important woman in england and she's a daughter of rob rothchild. she is a great person. here is your quote. did you find that to be a compliment? simon: i don't know. what did you think? i'm not sure you found that as a compliment. brian: are you a gossip?

i think all human affairs all human business, all politics is about human relationships. you can call that gossip, if you'd like. on the world's face. but if you look at these books for example, in all of them, there are sud dis and how power itself affects on penalty on power. even if you are talking about an imperial court with chamberlains and ladies in waiting or whether you're talking about the office of the president of the united states. elected officials. power works in a similar way. and it emanates from the person who has been elected who has the power. whether it is barack obama or vladimir putin. and i'm a student of the way that works. and i am fascinated by the way that happens. so i'm hoping that this book -- you can read it as entertainment during a lot of shocking murders and the rest. you can look at it about how it works together. it's the study of human nature and power. i just gave you one example. in 1981, when it was murder.

when he was assassinated, reform really ended in russia 1917. in russian history. look at trump. look at, you know, look at the clintons. again and again, personalities are decisive in power and in politics. and so my books concentrate on the personal. brian: who's your favorite personality? not your favorite leader, but funone you had the most researching? simon: well, peter the great is totally compelling. you know, he's a misunderstood character. i wanted to look at him in a political sense as well as a colorful character or. brian: when was he emperor? simon: he was the emperor in 1975. he was the emperor's sense 1962 when he was a child. these people are breathtaking. two greatest men in

the book. peter the great, who was catherine the great's partner. maybe the most talented individuals in the whole romanov story. both of them died at 52. now, i am 50-years-old. that's a pretty terrible statistic. that was on my mind because think of all they achieved, and they both died at 52-years-old. both of them utterly exhausted. brian: why were they so great. simon: well, let's start. he was called the great because he achieved so much. he modernized russia. he brought him more than technology, western experts. western forms of government. he mobilized it in hopes that they could defeat sweden.

he founded st. petersburg, a new capital. he conquered the baltic fleet, naval -- forssia a the same first time. he did all of this really because despite all the national reasons and the wonderful swedish methods at court and the modern artillery he developed. the wonderful ships in the russian navy. despite all of this modern stuff, he was always basically an auto credit who rolled it was the he was, government. if he slept, the government slept. when he was drunk, the government was drunk. he was everything. he was the ultimate personal ruler of russia. he was a genius. he took part in the beheadings of his enemies.

he tortured his own son to death. he -- you know, he was fascinated with the human body, dismantling it. he was fascinated with the human body. when he was in a homeland, he attended all of these medical dissections. he was fascinated with the dead bodies. a deaded to bite to body. he wanted to feel how it felt in his teeth. he had his own collection of surgical tools. he brought his own collection of surgical tools on towards. if you had a bad foot or a sword to his, and you were part of peter the great's entourage, you made sure you never mentioned it. brian: how many different emperors did you write about? are 20 that actually rolled. but there are actually many regions, many field martians.

many characters, many authors. this book as everyone from chayefsky to pushkin to dusky ascii. ascii -- dotskeyevsky. everyone to rasputin, probably the least talented. brian: let's talk about rasputin for a minute. you go into great detail in him. when did he first pop up in russian society? simon: it is interesting. too much emphasis on whether he is a healer or not. what is much more important is whatto he represented nicolas alexander felt was the

authentic foundation of the romanoff a talk receipt, which was the relationship between these are and the peasantry. ryan's call and you recognize who he has sitting with and who is standing behind him? no, i do not recognize them but he is unmistakable, rest putin. what was his -- rasputin. what was his relationship? simon: there was no love affair as was rumored. alexander and nicolas both absolutely needed rest putin. first of all was the healing of china.ophilia a tragic family story. they were agonized by this. why the child suffering. he almostfering as died repeatedly from hemophiliac

attacks. the stress they placed on themselves by insisting he must secede to the full plenitude of autocracy. so in this case was the stress on the child and themselves. brian: what year is nicholas -- simon: this is 1905, 1904 was when the child alexi was born. they meet him next year. and he remains key. right up until a his murder in december, 1916. brian: i guess i did not ask right. nicholas ii was the emperor for how long? simon: over 20 years. 1894 to 1917. brian: the reason i wanted to this is theasputin, end of the romanovs. because rasputin became essential will to parents as well as the child. but he didn't become totally politically important until world war i. and in world war 1, nicholas decided to become commander in

chief. and he left the capital in the charge of the emperor alexander. extremely self righteous, religious who believed absolutely in sacred and a completely sacred autocracy that's the rule of romanov of a god-given ramonov. and when nicholas ii left, alexandra was back in petersburg. she found herself and in this preposterous nomination where

she had complete contempt for particularly in germany. she found herself and me business of politics and she knew nobody. self-righteous, prudish woman, had to turn to someone. and that was rasputin, who only knew the most competent for the people in saint petersburg. the people he sent home were the most depraved people in saint petersburg. this was a test for free. this book is based on correspondence. there are several thousand that letters at that time. apart from being fascinating because they are passionate about each other. they are very close. it also reveals how isolated they were.

wishes, by their own the way. depended, tothey the third degree, on rasputin. when you read the letters, you realize just how unstable she was. she was sending things like nicolas rasputin's rush and things like that. you realize that the prestige and the power of the monarchy is seeping away fast when she's in charge. brian: who didn't like rasputin? simon: no one liked him except for the family. by the time world war i started in 1914, no one liked rasputin but people couldn't face the fact that there was a responsibility that belonged to the tsar and they blamed it on

rasputin. they were sure that they would solve the problems of russia's miss ruler if they killed rasputin. brian: how did they do it? if you go to st. petersburg and a lot of americans do, where would they find nicholas and alexandria living at that time? and where did rasputin live? simon: nicholas and alexandra lived outside from petersburg. they hated the immoral debauchery. they live in the alexander palace. the palace built by saint catherine the great for her grandson. brian: where is the winter palace? simon: right in the center of saint petersburg. now, rasputin lived on a flat. when they came out to meet the

czar or czarina, they would meet in a small cottage outside the city gates that no one know about it. that little house is still there, by the way. and no one goes to see it but they should. because that's where russia was governed. all of the streets were controlled by the minister and they would make a record of anyone visiting. but anyway, they avoid anyone knowing but of course, everybody knew anyway. and meanwhile also in this city both for the use of the palace which i'm sure that has the room where rasputin was killed and the courtyard where he was killed. he was a cross-dressing, bisexual, opium addict. friend dimitri was a member of the imperial family,

in fact. they decided the only way to save russia and save the monarchy was to kill rasputin. it was like a vampire movie. he was shot but he got up again. they put a stake in his heart and that finally killed him. but in fact, the murder was very different from that. there are interesting things about that. we know now there was some kind of british involvement. the british secret service were involved somehow. actually been involved in the a session nation. brian: why? simon: rasputin was against the war. that was true. that was one of the only sensible things he did devise, was to stay out of war. but that was a very difficult thing to do, to stay out of the war. nicholas was strong enough to withstand the pressure to go

into war. brian: which side was russia on? simon: the american side. the british were interested in him being killed. one was to keep russia in the war. the second was to save the monarchy. believe the monarchy would be destroyed if rasputin continued his influence. agents were british involved in this plot. what really happened was they went into his house. they shot him once. did not kill him. he ran outside and somebody from behind fired at him and brought him down with a second shot that was not fatal. this is what is interesting. at this point, someone walked up with a huge pistol. like a clint eastwood styled magnum.

they put it right against his four head here, point blank and blew him away. it was not this kind of romantic gothic story the way we see it in hollywood movies. it was more like a cold-blooded execution. famous picturehe of rasputin on the screen. ?hat effect did this have what exact year was he killed? simon: december 16. this is a great picture. the body underneath the ice in the river. they threw him under the ice. it took a wild to find him. what is interesting is that he is in storage there before has a. you can see the point-blank shot in the middle of the forehead. you can see if they're pretty clearly. brian: what affected it have that they told him? simon, will come of the funny thing was instead of

strengthening the monarchy exposed and emasculated the monarchy because nothing changed when rasputin died. nicholas the second was still the same nicholas the second theing with alexander fourth. he did not start getting into a representative government. nothing changed. all it showed that the government was hollow and nicholas the second was a deeply incompetent ruler. brian: i'm at the end. nicholas and alexanders' assassination. the fact that the bolsheviks took over. up to thatto lead us and explain after this assassination of rasputin, when did the next step in this process take place? simon: it was in december of 1916. the monarchy literally lasted two months afterwards. the arnie was this was not a revolution led by lenin and stalin and trotsky.

they were all in exile in siberia. they said, the revolution would here it came.but it was totally unexpected yet easily predictable because people started to protest about food shortages in the capital and it quickly spread. the troops who were in the city started to fraternize with the rabble. and nicholas was far away at the front. brian: where was he? simon: he was right at the front at the headquarters. it took him a log of time to get back. he was foolish to try to get a rush. his train got sidelined, supposedly stopped by workers and he found himself totally alone in eight well waystation in the middle of nowhere and he had to ask his general what to do and the general said, abdicate. suddenly he was alone in the imperial carriage and had to

sign in abdication. so he abdicated to the boy, nowa 18-years-old. and he said to his daughter, is hemophilia curable? how long can he live? the doctor said, he could live a long time or he could die very young. and then he sort of said, you know what i decided i need to change my plan. i am going to change my abdication. i am going to leave the throne to my brother michael and keep the child with me. brian: was that his decision? any emperor could say. simon: and that is very interesting. if we look at putin, his success, the success in my government is a measure of its orderliness. authority, of its system, if you like. the first in paul

1796, and he czar could just appoint anyone they like as there's successor. so his successor was his wife, catherine the first. one of the most extraordinarily colorful female characters in this book. but she was little more than a camp follower. she first appears walking naked as a prisoner in the russian camp. she was neither a russian norah o'donnell match and yet peter the great married her and renamed her katharine. and crown to her empress of russia. when he died, she was crowned even though she had no claim on the throne. in charge make anyone of that powerful autocracy. nowadays,is that since the 18 90's and in 2016, the presidents of the russia who are again autocrats, can't

choose their own successors again. unthinkable. was in the 20th century, so you have vladimir putin. similarly, despite allagain, democracy, thef tsar can choose his own successor. brian: look back at why, the whole revolution in 1917, what happened to the last romanovs? simon: terrible story. i don't take the romantic approach to nicholas alexander. the movie view. i don't take it. i differ from the traditional romantic approach. they were a couple who were in love with each other. they were a loving parents, but they were also rulers.

i think that when people read in this book what they were really like, i think people will be amazed at how anti-semitic they were. the stuff about jews is shocking. considering that they regarded as wonderful, romantic heroes. >> it connects to you and your family. simon: we left at that time, my mother's family, to escape. his vindictiveness, i think people will be surprised when they read the book. that they may not recognize the nicholas and alexandra they knew. the family is only one part of it. i will say, when they were on in they did conduct

ed themselves with immense grace. they behave with immense dignity. that is why they were made it two cents. at the same time, it is worth remembering, at the same time nicholas the second was the pose, reading tolstoy and books to children in captivity, he was also reading his children the prodigal's of the elder of zion. the anti-somatic forgery. -- anti-semitic forgery. that gives you some perspective. in the end, when the bolsheviks took power, lenin, stalin, tchaikovsky, it was in a turn of events. they were in danger of their lives. it was unthinkable that the children could be in danger of their lives. lenin and trotsky were ruthless operatives and they could take no chances. it is clear, when you look at the orders to kill them all,

, including the children, came from the top, came from lenin. he was very aware of history. when it came to kill them, to kill all of them, these for four gorgeous daughters, the innocent son, as well as the parents, as well as the family doctor and the entourage, never has a murder been so bungled, never has a crime been more appalling or atrocious, they did it by sheer incompetence. brian: set the scene. simon: they were at the house. they were kept there. all the windows were painted white. the family was kept in total isolation. members of their

entourage were taken away and shot in the woods. gradually, they realized that something terrible was going to happen. yet, the army was approaching and they could hear the guns at night. the order came from moscow that if the whites got to near, they could wipe out the whole family. so this job was done. they were woken up at about 1:00 in the morning, came downstairs and put on their clothing taken , into a room, the seller room. brian: they thought they were being moved. simon: they came down, the little boy set down. he had recently had a hemophiliac attack. nicholas stood in front of the boy, seemingly protected. suddenly, these 12 ruffians came in with guns and bayonets and pistols and rifles and half of them were drunk. some of them were psychopaths who had murdered people before.

one of them had beheaded a man and a bank robbery before the revolution. they came in and read the sentence of death. then they all started firing. it all went wrong immediate ly. everyone was supposed to kill one person. a lot of them were not comfortable shooting girls so they aimed at the person they were meant to shoot and in the suddenly switched the guns and shot nicholas the second in the chest. he was killed instantly. it are what else was screaming and all them were alive. then there was a free-for-all of shooting. killing some of them. but, tragically, all the girls in the children were wearing their own bizarre bulletproof bulletproof vests, but vests sewn with the romanoff diamonds, like bulletproof. in case they needed money if

they escaped. they spent months with the diamonds. they had billions of pounds on their body and they weighed in a an enormous amount. when the bullets came, these made their execution and agony much longer because the bullets bounced off diamonds, the hardest substance known to man. they did not die. they had to go among the bodies, so much blood on the floor that it was slippery like an ice rink. they had to walk in and stabbed them and shoot them in the head. still, two of the girls at the , end of this, mayhem, half an hour, two of the girls were still coughing and had to be stabbed and shot all over again. i wept when i was writing this. it is agony. brian: who reported on what happened? as i remember, you talk about being in a room with a dim

lightbulb and you can't see each other and all that. who had the information? several of themon: assassins wrote memoirs about what they had done. because the whole thing with such a debacle, it took literally three days and three nights without sleep to bury the bodies. what happened with the bodies afterwards, we should go into now, it involves sulfur i said, sulfur acid and fire and be buried in different places and terrible things being done to the bodies of the girls especially. when they came to read the memoirs, they were so confused about what had happened in this sleepless three-day struggle to depose of the bodies that they contradicted themselves in different places. there are different versions of the story. all these were kept in the archives. brian: is this new information

you found? simon: there are new aspects of it, but the story is to going on, which is very interesting. as everyone knows, the bodies were found in the 1990's and uried, boris yeltsin for presiding. they were buried in the family vault, but two of the bodies were missing. not anastasia, she did not survive. the grand duchess maria and her sister their bodies were never found. 10 years later, 2007, very recently, they found the remains of those bodies. just bits of skeleton. they were tested by western specialists and found to be the missing romanovs, but the orthodox church, backed by the president of the russian federation, because in russia the orthodox church is a branch

avail talk a see, challenged these findings. last year we're up-to-date now, , last year president putin and , his security agencies and the church suddenly decided they would test everything again. nicholas exhumed nic the second, tested his body, exhumed the children and they tested these two last bodies. at the time of this begin, nothing had been announced yet. i think this is something to do with putin's view of history. putin's preparation for the centennial coming up next year and after. something is up with this. i don't know what it is. we are right there now. , and some sense this story is happening right now as we speak in russia. something is about to happen and it reflects president putin's view of history.

his view of history is very interesting. he's without ideology. he regards the two worst stars s of russia as mikael gorbachev and nicholas the second. what is a soviet leader, the other is a romanoff. he calls london a disaster and stalin a successful statesman. it is a great, as it are, because the first as great. nicholas the second as a useless betrayer of the country. he regards gorbachev, our great hero as we regard as such of as an impressive liberal modernizer, he regards him as a failure, too. he judged them by their success. he sees himself, president putin as a russian leader. ,a russian leader of the russian world, to be judged with the

great rulers of russian history. brian: comment about anti-semitism and your own family and all that. lenin and trotsky who were on either side of stalin were jewish? simon: lenin was not jewish. brian: not at all? simon: something like 16th jewish. he was also part tartar. brian: throughout the book, there's a lot of anti-semitism. what is the basis of that? brian: this is the strange thing. net anti-semitism become a family fetish that made no sense to them whatsoever. this goes with the wider crisis in the monarchy that they had, which was that they could not quite decide if they wanted to

be emperor of this huge multinational multi-religion empire with all these different religions or if they wanted to nationalisticrs, tsars. this was one of the contradictions that they cannot quite work out. from nicholas the first onward, they basically plumped for being nationalistic russian rulers and they gradually and foolishly alienated all the minorities. none more so than the georgians, poles, jews. which is why so many of those peoples became bolsheviks and revolutionaries and terrorists. they did it, it was a completely absurd concept. ews, regarded the j

regarded thesecond english and the jews were the same. they believe that they were involved in all the things that were wrong with the modern world. newspapers, the stock exchange, democracy, everything that nicholas the second hated. he regularly talked about, someone said to him, what is a newspaper? he said that a newspaper is a bunch of jews trying to go to war with each other. it is a great thing when he goes to stage with his cousins and was incrediblyth pro-jewish. he had one of these big jewish tycoons staying there, the wealthiest man in europe at the time. he deliberately asked him to try and introduce into nicholas the second to make a more pro-jewish. nicholas the was horrified. second he wrote to his mother, they have a lot of jewish

horsedealer staying here. i'm so horrified that i think i'm going to not say whole word the whole weekend. brian: i want to put a list of your books on the screen. of all those books which one so , the best? think stalin and the courts of the red tsar. from your standpoint, what is the thread through all of these books. simon: the threat of these books is that i have longed to write these books. i wanted to produce what's on the subjects that were based on scholarship, the archives, and were readable by everybody. accessible. in an if we saw you archive, where would that archive be physically? simon: it would be either in a former palace in moscow or in archives, a 1920's

building in moscow. or i might be walking around a palace try to work out which or if ity lived in, was jerusalem, i might be walking around the city, going ton the tunnels, trying understand how differently they were built. brian: last time, we were talking about the archives. there are some inference that the archives would be closed. what happened from 2004 until now? brian: there has been a huge tightening of access to the archives. it is much harder to work on them now especially the modern , ones. they don't care so much about archives, but the stalin archives and any political archives, if they are not open, they will not open now. there is a real dark atmosphere

in russia at the moment as part of an anti-western, xenophobic atmosphere. getting to the archives was never easy. i really the first time i started working on caps on the great, kathleen the great, the archivist determined i would not find anything. i was looking at the documents the first time, the archivist try to stop me and there's a squealing sound and something landed on my head and it was a kitten. up at the archivist. she was leaning over and waved at me to let me know i was not welcomed. brian: how long did you spend? simon: i spent months over there in those archives. also, walking around places is hugely important. so often, when i was writing about catherine the great, the

villages. book after book, he said he never built anything. when i went down to crimea, ukraine, and so on, i i found many of these places had been built by him and are still there. you hade talked about been to all 15 homes of stalin? have you been to all of the homes of the romanovs? simon: pretty much. brian: how many? simon: at least 50 palaces, maybe more. so many of them. i'm open to every single one. there are thousands of them. if you include all the hunting places, probably up to 100 residences. brian: would people let you in? simon: yeah. brian: did you have a translator with you or can you speak good russian? simon: my russian is a work in progress.

you can get into all these places. as for the letters themselves, some of them are in russian, but many of them are in english. one thing that may surprise people is that, everyone hated alexander as the german, but actually she was english. she was brought up by queen victoria. she wrote her letters, the love letters between nicholas and alexandra are all in english. broken english, but english. brian: time is running out. this has nothing to do with these books, but it does have to do with you. i want to show your wife who has written how many novels now? at least 15. brian: you live in kensington and london. you have high social presence there. simon: we work a lot. we have just written our first book together, a children's

book. it is coming out in october. brian: let me show you the better half. >> i live in london here. this is my garden in kensington. i live with my husband and my two children. i always wanted to write. i'll is did right. for child, i wrote books children of friends and parents. then when i got to school, i started writing short stories with my girlfriends. my mother once read one who chose a writer and said you should really try get something published. i wrote one. by return of post it was sent back to me, rejected, of course. that was the start of another projection. it was not a rejection. i put them in a bottom drawer and continued. brian: have you ever seen that?

simon: no, i have never seen that. she's talking about all her lovely books she has written and she is leaning on stalin's complete works. brian: how long have you been married? simon: a long time. we were married in 1998. originally, we worked at the same table. when we started writing, we do did not have any hope that we would be successful so we had a , very small apartment. not in kensington. we had one table which was a dining room table. we worked on different sides of it and we spent our whole time arguing about what kind of music to listen to. she wanted to celine dion all the time, which i cannot tolerate. i wanted to listen to guns and roses or david bowie or pitbull or loud, driving music which help me keep up my narrative in these long books. we argued a lot about music,

mainly about music, now we have our own offices. she can listen to all the celine dion she likes. brian: as you know, we have not even begun to talk about this book. there's so much more in here. there is one thing that i wanted to bring up because it stupefied me as i was reading it, the dwarfs. tell us how often did these emperors, i don't know which you would call it, play with the dwarfs? brian: a lot of reviewers have said that this book makes the game of thrones look like a tea party. that's what one of them said in the "financial times." they were key. they signified the exceptionalism, the sanctity of the tsar. the had a lot of cripples around them, freaks, fools, and dwarfs.

they were often their favorite people. peter the great love to have these weddings he had giant . weddings. the empress anna was a cruel, horrible, vindictive woman. she had an entourage of women who were lacking limbs. one was called the legless one. one was called the armless one. she also had fools. princes into fools. then she had another fool who she said to get married. so he was invited to the house where he was with a goat. she loved dwarf tossing and where they had fights where they pulled each other's hair. if they refuse, they were beaten. if they did what she said, she would spoil them with new

clothing, food, and big cash gifts. some became incredibly rich. extraordinary story. this is an amazing family story. dwarves are tossed, empires, and empire is increased, great love affairs, but also where fathers killed her sons. wives have their husbands overthrown and murdered, sons collude to murder their fathers. how many of the 20 romanovs were assassinated or killed? of the last 12, 6 were murdered violently or assassinated. i will give you an idea. for the late 18th century onward, half of them were killed. but of the themes of the book is that russia is a very hard

country to rule and being a tsar is a hard thing to be. brian: should president clinton be called tsar putin? simon: people say if, powerful russians laugh about this very question. for him, wealth is irrelevant. he is the tsar. everything belongs to him. who tried the most to democracy over there? simon: i think alexander the second is the most sympathetic of the family. brian: how about modern day? simon: boris yeltsin is a hugely underrated character. he was flawed, great but flawed. he was a drunk. he opened up the war in chechnya and terrible things were done there. he opened up russia. he tried to check abuses. he opened up history. he brought in democracy. brian: you say he brought in putin. what did he think putin would

do? simon: this is the succession thing. it is impossible for an autocrat to retire without being murdered. it is impossible for a president to retire without agreement that he and his entire entourage and family will not be prosecuted for either war crimes of the or the vast corruption. that means, in effect, it is virtually impossible for any president to retire. retiredwhy when yeltsin , he made a deal with his successor and that is why putin can never really retire. he was asked if he would ever give up, retire. and he said he would never retire. i will never be like gorbachev and nicholas the second and leave the country to chaos, scum, hooligans. they were weak. they were betrayers. i will never advocate. brian: viewers can find another three hours of you talking about stalin and jerusalem and other

things, and this book, the romanovs, new this year. what is next? simon: i have written two novels set in russia. they love stories and thrillers. i'm just writing the third of the trilogy. brian: next nonfiction book? simon: i am not sure about that. i'm signed up to write a history of the world, which could be a step too far. that is in the distant future. brian: what do you do when you are not writing and researching? simon: i spent time with my life. i love you showing me that video. it has picked me up enormously on this exhausting nine city tour. brian: how old are your two kids now? simon: my kids are now 15 and 13. brian: are either one interested in writing? simon: yeah they are both quite , good at writing.

i don't want to pressure them. to make a living as a writer is a very hard thing. not many people get to do it. i don't want to force them into doing it. it must be funny for them. we are both writers. is as you can see, she delightful person to live with. brian: our guest has been simon sebag montefiore. his family is in this book on page 372 in this book, the romanovs. we thank you very much for joining us. simon: lovely to be here. thank you for having me. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this &a.org., visit us at q

>> if you like this interview, here are some others you might enjoy. margaret macmillan on her book about the 1914 assassination of archduke frantz ferdinand, leading to the outbreak of world war i. service on leon trotsky. appelbaum -- anne applebaum. >> on the next washington journal, we get your reaction to the mass shooting in orlando florida and share the latest developments in the

investigation. call and by phone or leave a comment on facebook or twitter. washington journal is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. coming up next, prime minister's questions at the british house of commons. president obama speaks about today's mass shooting in orlando, florida. later, faith and freedom coalition hears from republican woman cares -- republican lawmakers at a conference in washington. during question time, prime minister david cameron announced an extended deadline for those planning to register for the june 20 through referendum deciding whether the u.k. remains a member of the european union. the prime minister took questions on that topic and other issues concerning national security and immigration.

in eighth of june and made in 17. yesterday we commemorated women's south rage and the importance of both britain and voting for women. the demand were unable to put the update, the house on what he's doing to ensure everyone has a chance to register their vote in these vital vote. >> i join my honorable friend in the membrane but this up or