This lavish sparkling period epic romance deserves so much credit. Maybe I’m the only viewer troubled by three thorns among those roses. Let’s take a look.

The His and the Handmaid refer to Matthew Lykov (Матвей Лыков) as Count Nikolai Sheremetev, and Milana Bru (Милана Бру) as Anna Averina and their romance under escalating duress and danger.

Russian streaming service subscribers can watch all 90 episodes. For the rest of us there are three-minute clips on You Tube. Watching them is like picking up sparkling confetti off the street and then assembling the pieces to guess what-all that parade was about.

How did this show appear on the radar? The Angel Studios production of “Seeking Persephone” [= upcoming post] won me over so much that I kept playing the episodes in the background, tilting the computer screen away from the windows so the neighbors couldn’t tell I was watching the same show over and over.

So some algorithm calculated this: Why not toss her another early 19th Century matchmaking epic about a beautiful innocent girl from a ruined noble family who must 1. save herself and her relatives by embarking on unwilling exile at the castle of a handsome single aloof depressed self-isolating nobleman of unlimited wealth, and then must 2. win him over with sweetness, light, and acute emotional sensitivity to his moods and needs and trauma to transform him into an ideal spouse? Only this time let’s send the viewer a show in Russian. Will that get her attention? It did. I fell right in, at least for a few episodes.

There is a whole bouquet of reasons why the courtship is so appealing. And, there are three reasons why I need to stop watching these clips and find a new hobby like tatting or scrimshaw instead.

Our Plot So Far:

Count Nikolai Sheremetev from Saint Petersburg is one of the richest men in the Russian Empire. He is a war hero on medical leave from fighting the French due to battle fatigue. He wants to recover his nerves and go return to duty. Then Nikolai inherits his mother’s Moscow estate — on condition that he marry within one year. Nikolai arrives in Moscow with Potáp, his faithful manservant (or are we talking serfdom here?) to settle Mother’s affairs and seek a bride of highest society and fortune.

Nikolai likes to be left in peace from Moscow society and from domestic cares. He’d rather drink tea in his study managing the estate. (Here he calculates taxes on an abacus. It takes only nine columns to calculate 9,999,999.99 rubles and kopecks, but his abacus has twelve columns. That’s real money.)

And yet, for some reason Nikolai finds leisure for an evening of cards, where he wins away the family estate of a Mr. Averin. Now Nikolai is stuck with two superfluous Moscow estates instead of one, and the Averins are homeless and penniless. But Nikolai proposes that to pay off the debt, their daughter Anna can work as his maidservant for one year. Anna’s task will be to clean house, serve elegant dinners for potential wife candidates from highest society, and provide a peaceful environment where Nikolai can recover and return to military service.

Questions arise. The whole Imperial Army probably had battle fatigue; how many were sent home against their will for lengthy rest cures? Why doesn’t Nikolai seek a bride in St. Petersburg instead, where he has a lifetime of relatives and associates? How can a large estate be paid back in one year with the amateur puttering of one young noblewoman with a feather duster? Why did the idle philandering Averins toss their daughter to the wolves of Moscow gossip, letting Anna perform manual labor and dwell unchaperoned in the home of a single man? Why didn’t Averin and his son volunteer to go work instead or in addition, as two more workers for the price of one, with no maidenly reputation to risk?

Nikolai is probably accustomed to efficient silent unobtrusive obedient staff. Then Anna moves to the Sheremetev estate with Simka, her lifelong lady’s maid (or are we talking serfdom here?). Anna is willful and spirited, arguing with Nikolai to defend her pride and status while learning how not to burn toast. Anna’s hapless housekeeping gives us the innocent Lucy and Ricky Ricardo phase of their acquaintance. Nikolai is obliged to scoop up Anna in his arms and rush her upstairs out of the kitchen after she sets a pan on fire. He catches Anna as she falls off a bookshelf while dusting. He carries Anna to the house after she sprains her ankle. He carries Anna out of the study after she tries nips of his liquor and passes out cold. He catches Anna after she playfully bounces on his bed on mattress springs that weren’t invented until decades later.

Eventually Anna settles in, waltzing through the half dozen rooms with her feather duster, pouring tea or shelving books or arranging flowers. The bored depressed veteran cooped up in a strange estate far from home finds diversion in his new maidservant. There are tender lyrical scenes, as when Nikolai discovers that his PTSD recedes and he can fall asleep when Anna sits up beside the bed singing him a lullabye about the moon. Being not at all in touch with his own feelings, he begins toying with hers instead. To paraphrase the Pet Shop Boys, he’s got the looks, she’s got the time; they’ll have lots of money. Conveniently, the gentry have written her off as a marriage prospect, her philandering family doesn’t seem to know she’s gone, she already lives in his house, she is enchanted by him, and she is learning to make toast. Nikolai impulsively gives Anna his mother’s ring, and they plan an engagement ceremony. Happy ending!

Maybe. The young lovers are supported only by servants Potáp and Simka, loyal people with a lick of sense who ply colorful banter and keep the house running in a pitch-perfect acting performance. But everyone else in Moscow resolves to alienate the young couple’s affections. Extraneous characters keep circling in like buzzards, with increasingly dangerous distractions, strategems, schemes, ruses, and maneuvers using gossip, lies, duels, extramarital betrayal, and character assassination. Powerful Princess Vorontsova, Nikolai’s aunt, wants the estate for herself; she plans to move in and have Nikolai placed under “medical supervision” (= involuntary commitment?), and vows “I want her to disappear from his life forever. At ANY price.” She and other persons of vested interest tell Anna that if Nikolai weds a woman of her lower class in an unconventional morganatic marriage, he will lose his entire fortune and will face prison in Siberia or a posting to a suicide squad at the front or both.

Is this true? If so, Nikolai already knows all about it, and the Sheremetev family could have sat down with the two and had a serious conversation. Instead, Anna resolves in secret to sacrifice her happiness and let Nikolai marry someone else, collect the estate, and return to the front. Out of love for him she abruptly returns the engagement ring and feigns contempt for Nikolai while desperately pining for him and waiting on table for eligible Moscow girls and their doting mothers.

Nikolai is astounded by her apparent change of heart. It’s probably his first experience of disappointment to his male pride. He demands an explanation, towering over Anna and trying to restrain her in various confrontations while she slips away and flees to the servants’ quarters. And yes, he’s devastated, but he has 100% of the power here while she has none at all. Even on a 12-column abacus this man can not figure out why this sensitive girl would renounce her first love. Yet, these two were born and bred and programmed to marry high and to keep within their social class. He is already aware that Princess Aunt is threatening Anna in her glittering lamprey manner. Did he not foresee trouble on the way?

Can this romance prevail? Who knows? There’s 90 episodes!

What’s To Like?

So much. After a workday of customer service and detail-driven problem resolution, any first moment in any scene in История его служанки lets my mirror neurons calm down and cheer up. Every three-minute confetti clip is an aesthetic treat. Every scene opens with floating drifting views inside a massive gorgeous estate house. True, from the outside it looks a bit AI-generated, and inside everyone keeps to only a few rooms: office with library, his bedroom, drawing room, and not much else but a wee kitchen downstairs. But these interior shots (and apparently it’s all interior, even the scenes staged to look outdoors) are just beautiful. This is a high-ticket production with interesting roles and wonderful camera work and many creative people working hard behind the scenes.

Anna is lovely with her dark remarkably expressive eyes, heart-shaped face, alabaster complexion, long wavy dark hair, willowy graceful figure, and refined gestures and voice. The one puzzlement, and this is in no way a criticism of the actress Ms. Bru, is her presentation in this role. She is assigned chalky pale makeup with a glossy-moist finish, a color filter of orange tones for her lips and the shadows around her eyes, and a tumbled unbrushed hairstyle with random hairpins and loose strands. She wears only fragile gauzy powder-blue dresses that would never hold up in actual housekeeping. The production values are so high that this must be a way to emphasize her very youthful fresh delicate personality. It also raises anticipation that a major glowup makeover must be in the works for Anna, to be unveiled later in the series.

In masculine contrast, Nikolai with his luminous eyes and well-favored features and compelling physical grace looks smashing in a seemingly endless wardrobe of bold intense blues and reds. Each garment and accessory is perfectly appointed to accentuate his every social nuance and emotion. As a viewer with no fashion sense, I can not recall ever seeing a man who is so masterful at wearing lots of clothes and moving around in them. It turns out that Mr. Lykov himself is internationally famous in the fashion and design world (The Russian term for his credential is Top Módel.).

So What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Issue One: The cavalier handling of guns and weapons among even Napoleonic War military veteran characters who know better.

“Chekhov’s gun” (Чеховское ружьё) is a familiar literary device; as the author repeated in various ways, One mustn’t place a loaded gun in a scene if no one plans to fire it. (Нельзя ставить на сцене заряженное ружьё, если никто не имеет в виду выстрелить из него.) Well, this show gives us no chance to build up suspense around the guns in various scenes: in this household the firearms get tossed around like Pez dispensers loaded with popup candies.

At first, this review included screen shots with humorous captions, showing multiple howling gaffes in gun safety. But they’re deleted now. In real life, weapon accidents have caused too much loss of life and suffering to too many people.

This show could commit to displaying gold-standard responsible gun ownership, especially for young viewers, and could include those standards in the dialogue. Is that too much to asl?

“No no, Mary; you don’t understand. The show is aiming (so to speak) for historical accuracy. People in 1812 were simpler folk who did not have today’s superior understanding of ballistics and gun safety.” Well, one scene shows Princess Auntie Vorontsova consulting with an expert about best ways to support her veteran nephew’s mental wellbeing. The expert warns her that all guns must be removed from Nikolai’s field of vision. Princess Auntie then buys Nikolai a gun.

In 1812, people knew what guns do when they are aimed and fired. Yet these characters violate every one of the following safety rules. One must always always assume that a gun is loaded. One must lock up guns in a safe, or put them in a castle gun room, not on one’s work desk within reach of the next temper tantrum or feather duster. One must not fling guns across the room. One should not hand a gun to a veteran with PTSD, pressuring him to fire it as homespun therapy. One must not come up behind said veteran as he is aiming the gun out the window, and passionately throw one’s arms around his neck as moral support. After firing said gun, the gun owner must not wave the gun all around one’s sweetheart while doing a happy dance of exuberance. One must not undermine the engagement of a depressed nephew by giving him yet another gun and then suggesting to the fianceé that the gun might be used on her. Most of all, a gun owner inside his study whose beloved is just outside the door worrying about him must not frighten her into hysterics by shooting up a vase to let her think that he’s shot himself.

Issue Two: Domestic violence, actual and implied, is packaged as a flavorful spice in the sugar of earliest acquaintance and attraction.

“What violence? Nikolai doesn’t punch her out.” Granted, and on a rough day he gives fair warning by barricading himself in his room and warning everyone to leave him in peace. But on day one of their acquaintance Nikolai aims a gun at Anna’s father, threatening to shoot him to dispense with the trouble of a duel, while Anna rushes her father out of harm’s way and Potáp pins Nikolai’s arm and holds him. Nikolai challenges Anna’s teatime suitor to a duel after grabbing him by the throat. Nikolai flings a pot of boiling milk across the kitchen. Nikolai shouts and smashes a teacup at the wall to get Anna to leave the room. Nikolai also uses alcohol to take the edge off his battle memories (At one point Anna keeps him sympathetic company by trying a dose herself, and passes out.).

In one conversation he confides to her that he can not always contain his rage, and that within him there dwells a monster. In another, she vows that she will fearlessly hold his hands when he is overwhelmed by wrath. In one tender scene she confesses that she is afraid of his gun and would like to hide it, but he smiles at her concern: “Let the gun be feared by my enemies. You are the complete opposite. I could never cause harm to you.” She gives him a brave smile and walks away hiding her tears. This undertone colors their early courtship with anguished apologies and forgiveness and reconciliation and his attempts to compensate with warmth and charm and white roses and her attempts to help and be kind. It keeps Anna hyper-vigilantly tuned in, ready to intervene and distract and soothe and cheer Nikolai, in her pure faith that her love will heal him.

What’s the message? Is it meant to normalize domestic violence so long as a character is depressed and in need of sympathy and if he apologizes really well and is enchanting company most of the time?

Well, here’s a message from me: Bunny, you’ve got 90 days.

In my experience, that’s how long it will take your traumatized guy to figure out that you, with all the kindness in the lifeblood of your heart, are not the angel who takes away the pain of life. Inevitably he will conclude that you are to blame for all his troubles, including Napoleon. The next thing hitting the wall might not be the teacup.

Issue Three: Where is the immense and constant influence of 19th Century Russian Orthodox culture with its themes of humility, forgiveness, and discernment of God’s will? In the clips I saw, faith gets two fleeting mentions as a humor device to show Potáp’s sincere servant class mentality.

Inhabitants of a wealthy Moscow estate may or may not care about a personal relationship with God. But if only for genteel veneer, or if only to curry spiritual favor amid their scandalous shenanigans, they would likely have a private chapel or would support a local church. There would be one or more elements of private devotions, icons, baptismal crosses included in everyone’s wardrobe, a social cycle influenced by fast and feast days and name-day celebrations, religious terms and sayings in everyday speech, possibly a pilgrimage if the household veteran needs to find balance in his life, pilgrims and beggars showing up at the door for charity in the name of Christ, reflex gestures such as the sign of the cross at anxious moments, and most importantly a local priest to confess the family and counsel them on important life decisions. Instead, peripheral characters with their massive gambling stakes, gossip, duels, extramarital betrayal, and character assassination show no awareness that Russian culture offers any precedent for spiritual responsibility.

Other recent Russian shows (Father Matvei; Savior Beneath the Birches; on and on) found fond success incorporating truly devout spiritual principles. Why is there no aesthetic trace of Orthodox culture anywhere in evidence here? Why does this show portray zero characters of faith and wisdom?

I am a big fan girl for this show and its acting and dialogue and aesthetics and romantic sensibility and many loving lovely moments like this one below, where hopefully the link works. (And if the link doesn’t work I’ll try to sing the song myself and post the recording here.) I’m in tears just typing about this scene, where a frightened Simka begs Anna to do or say anything to distract her from losing Nikolai. (Let’s start a sewing project! Let’s go take a walk! Anything but this silence!) Finally Anna sings with Simka the moon lullabye that she once sang to Nikolai, while scenes with him pass through her memory:

Searchable title: “Душевное изнеможение историяегослужанки”

I’d be sorry to keep watching peripheral characters drag Nikolai and Anna apart in a milieu of malice and spiritual alienation.

But this production certainly caught my attention. Much praise is due to the actors, and the crew of artists behind the scenes.

Fun spoiler alert, 189 years after the fact: The families mentioned in the show are actual figures from Russian history. This week it was a nice surprise to read (Holy Women of Russia by Brenda Meehan, page 30) that in 1837 one benefactor of the women’s monastery at Borodino was Count D.N. Sheremetev (that N. would be Nikolaevich, or son of Nikolai). So a marriage of some kind worked in the end. I’ll tune back in at Episode 90 to see how these kids are doing.

Now about that tatting and scrimshaw….