Russia Books

The translator deserves a nobel prize for rendering the Russian into an English poetry which stands on its own as first class literature.

Long hailed as the Russian Shakespeare, Pushkin's novel in verse is a tantalizing combination of never comedic irony and agonizingly unrequited love. Full of many now-obsolete references to works of his day, some verses serve to interrupt the story line by making obscure indications to the poet's own explots and experiences. Interesting; but were it not for the notes in the back matter, they would have been lost on most readers, as they were on this one. That said, once the poet returns to his plot - which, by the way, is so good that it could be read in one sitting save the repeated departures - one finds oneself hooked. The verse is never delicate, never gentle. It rips the heart out and confiscates the senses. The young, naive, and love-struck Tatyana sends a letter to Onegin (pronounced on-ye-gen). He does not return her feelings, and tells her as much. But by a classic twist of fate, Onegin finds himself much changed in his opinion, and Tatyana, while not changed in her own, is in circumstances so changed, that her feelings are no longer given the sway they once were. It appears that Onegin was the naive one after all. For its universal value to Russian literature and its excellent translation, I recommend it fully. Eugene Onegin is a work full of reality, harsh and true; as such, a love story becomes believable.

James Falen's stunning translation of Eugene Onegin is a paragon of grace and subtlety. Despite the formidable challenge of converting Russian verse into English, this edition conveys Pushkin's fluidity of language, varied spirit and love for the human heart with precision and artistry. Indeed, as I breezed through this staggering work of genius, I kept marveling at the beauty of an English translation made possible, of course, only through Falen's understanding of the writer's intentions.

So the translation is a technical tour de force: the diction, style and tone are sublime. But the novel itself - through frequent transitions between bliss and morbidity, through lively dialogue, and through a devilish combination of action and wit - is also a fully-riveting tale. When encountering such Russian literature, some Americans will dismiss it as hoary or pessimistic, but this is facile. Pushkin holds darkness and sadness in relief to a soaring, more soulful encomium of life, and in doing so, presents us with humanity's casual, and often unintentional, profundity.

My Titles
Shadow Fields
Snooker Glen

Eugene Onegin of Alexander Pushkin, 19th century Russian author who often has been considered his country's greatest poet and the founder of modern Russian literature, presents different kinds of characters whose personal traits have a great relation with the period's social structure. Their different and remarkable personalities are worked up so profoundly that it is possible to see the reflections of the characters in the literary works which they read throughout their developing and changing lives. Therefore, this gives the reader an excellent insight into the thoughts and beliefs regarding their different behaviours which can also be associated with the deep effects of the time's social life. Throughout the novel, Pushkin illustrates his characters via the three main figures; Eugene Onegin, Vladimir Lensky and Tatyana.
Pushkin starts to portray his main character, Eugene Onegin, at the very beginning of the novel by describing him since his childhood. Even in his descriptions of Onegin's childhood, Pushkin tries to express how extraordinary and different Eugene is although he seems as if he is an ideal figure of 19th century Russian society even from the very beginning of his life. That's why Pushkin remarks; " He was sweet natured, and yet wild," (Chapter 1, III). Then Pushkin goes on describing his main character with his youth by suggesting that he starts to be in with the social requirements of his time by following the Romantic fashion, taking care oof his appearance in a delicate way in terms of his clothes an hair, learning to speak and write in French, and becoming more and more witty and sweet. The Russian society he is living in has such a context that everything is based on affectation, dishonesty, jealousy and ostentation. In such a social context, one has to be intellectual, educated, cunning and witty enough to maintain his/her existence among those kinds of people. The thing Onegin does is just to be one of the successful player of that game by knowing about every theme and learning affectation and to hide his feelings. Yet, he is still different form the others in his youth's readings. To point out this difference, Pushkin suggests that "He cursed Theocritus and Homer, in Adam Smith was his diploma;" ( Chapter 1, VII). Theocritus, who is Hellenistic Greek poet, and Homer are prominent figures of classical period. And as already known, there is a great interest in classical works and a great respect for the ancients in 18th and 19th centuries. It is an indispensable feature for a 19th century cultivated person to read and adore classical works. However, Onegin, different form the others, prefers to read works of Adam Smith, instead of Homer and Theocritus. Adam Smith is Scottish political economist and philosopher of 18th century. He shows how self-interest guides the most efficient use of resources in a nation's economy, with public welfare coming as a by-product (www.britannica.com). 18th century Europe is in favor of clarity, simplicity, science and rational thinking as opposed to sentimentality of 19th century Romantic period. Therefore, Onegin's interest in Adam Smith makes him quite different from 19th century Russian people. This shows us that Onegin, in his youth, is more interested in political and rational thinking than the fancies and emotions of the Romantic age. Although he has a different taste of reading, he definitely leads a fashionable, comfortable life which is in quite in harmony with the lifestyles the other people around him. He is flirting with married women and successfully manages to make friendships with their husbands; it is possible to see Parisian taste in the furnishings of his room; he never rejects to join balls; and thus he is a "child of luxury and delight" (Chapter 1, XXXVI) as Pushkin remarks. But this does not leave Onegin satisfied. Pushkin suggests it with these lines; "He was bored with social noise" and "infidelity proved cloying and friends and friendship, soul-destroying" (Chapter 1, XXXVII). While describing his characters' and the changes in their lives; Pushkin, as apparently seen, is constantly criticizing the social defects of the period such as fake friendships. Because of his boredom, Eugene retreats himself and starts to live in idleness. In this idleness, he look for satisfaction from reading. But he does not manage to get rid of his boredom. Therefore, he gives up reading just like the habits of his past life. Even during the time when he is living in his uncle's house in the countryside upon his uncle's death, he can't escape from being a slave of boredom and idleness. That he is not appealed to reading romances and poetry accounts for his disbelief in real love, marriage and happiness. It is possible to see this in his first meeting with Tatyana after her letter for him when he says to her; "...wedlock for us would be abhorrent./ I'd love you, but inside a day, with custom, love would fade away;" (Chapter 4, XIV). As can be seen apparently, there is a remarkable parallelism between his thoughts and his readings. His thoughts are far from sentimentality of the time's romances and poetry. His views about a universal feeling called love give an impression of excessive strictness, a clear-cut and so-called "rationality" that refuses its permanency too pessimistically, almost in a prejudiced way. It should be discussed whether his views stem from his readings or his readings lead him to think this way. But things are not always as it seems. After Onegin has left the country house upon Lensky's death, Tatyana visits the house and finds a few books by "Don Juan's and the Giaour's creator" (Chapter 7, XXII); that is by Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824). Lord Byron creates the concept of the "Byronic hero"- a defiant, melancholy young man, brooding on some unforgivable event in his past. In this sense, Onegin can be associated with a Byronic hero, burned out and unhappy with life. And his rejection of Tatyana's love can be accepted as the unforgivable event in his pastwhich condemns him to an unhappy life forever; just like Pushkin remarks almost in a criticizing tone; "Onegin...with no past, no work, no wife;/ had nothing to employ his life" (Chapter 8, XII). And when he realizes that he is in love with Tatyana after seeing her in a ball as a wife of a prince, he starts reading different kinds of authors such as Gibbon, Rousseau, Manzoni, Chamfort, Madame de Stael, Bichat, Tissot and Bayle. Pushkin describes the situation with these lines; "One more he turned to book, unchoosing,/ devouring Gibbon and Rousseau..." (Chapter 8, XXXV). When looked at the authors he has read, it is possible to see that each of them is from different literary fields. For example, Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) is an 18th century British historian; Manzoni (1785-1873) is an Italian poet and novelist; Bayle is a skeptic especially about human knowledge, Jean Jacques Rousseau is both a political thinker and the creator of the modern genre of autobiography (www.britannica.com). So it is not quite possible to determine the definite effects of those writers on his views and behaviours. But it is possible to infer that along with his love for Tatyana, the idleness and the boredom of his previous life leaves its place for love and at the same time pain and sorrow. Although he suffers from his love for Tatyana, now he has something that makes his life more meaningful. So he starts reading again as he finally manages to get rid of his boredom and idleness.
Vladimir Lensky is entirely different from Eugene although they are close friends. Pushkin describes their friendship with these lines; "So verse and prose, they came together,/ no ice an flame, no storm weather and granite, were so far apart." (Chapter 2, XIII). Lensky is portrayed as a young, stereotypical poet. He is still ambitious and hopeful about the future, quite different from Onegin's world view. Pushkin describes him with these words; "Vladimir Lensky, whose creator was Gottingen...He brought back all the fruits of learning from German realms of mist and steam" (Chapter 2, VI). So we see that his background comjes from German. He reads Goethe and Schiller. It is impossible not to see the effects of these writers on the personality of Lensky. Goethe is 18th century German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier and natural philosopher. In his first novel, Die Leiden des Jungen Werthers (The Sorrow of Young Werther), he creates the prototype pf the Romantic hero. Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is a German poet, philosopher, historian and dramatist. He is greatly influenced by Rousseau and Goethe (www.britannica.com). It is possible to infer that there are remarkable traces of his readings and German cultural background in Lensky's world view. Like Goethe's romantic hero, Werther's love for beautiful Charlotte, he is in deep love with Olga. As Pushkin remarks, he brings back "freedom's enthusiastic dream, a spirit strange, a spirit burning, an eloquence of fevered strength" (Chapter 2, VI). He is completely a traditional young poet who is burning with the flames of youth and who is a stereotypical romantic lover that can dare to die for his beloved's honour , which is suddenly lost in a dance.
Pushkin portrays Tatyana starting from her childhood just like Onegin's portrait. In her childhood, Tatyana is shy as a savage, silent, tearful, and "wild as a forest deer". As Pushkin suggests, "Reflection was her friend and pleasure," (Chapter 2, XXVI). That's why she has nothing to do with dolls in her childhood and later with needles and fashion like typical country women of the times whose only interests are gossiping, fashion and invitations. In this sense, she is also different from the people around her just like Eugene Onegin. However, although they are different personalities in their own social environment, they are different from each other, too. Tatyana is a completely romantic character full of passion and youth. She likes waking up early and watch the dawn; therefore, we can infer that she loves nature, which is a typical quality of Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth. She likes reading Rousseau and Richardson, Sophie Cuttin, Madame de Krudener and Madame de Stael. Richardson (1689-1701) is an English novelist. He is a verbose and sentimental story teller. Moreover, he emphasizes, in his works, psychological insights into women. While she is in a passionate love for Onegin, she relates him with the main characters of Richardson's novels. One of them is, for example, Grandison, the hero of History of Sir Charles Grandison (1754). Sir Charles, in the novel, is designed to redefine the virtues of the hero as both Christian and sentimental. So, this gives an idea about Tatyana's ideal lover. The other writer she likes reading is Rousseau. He is the first writer to attend closely to childhood and to the formation of his own sexuality. Later, he is adopted by the French Revolution as the martyr of virtue and by Romanticism as the hero of feeling. The most personal, and initially a source of embarrassment, is his epistolary novel Julie or The New Eloisa (1761). This is a story of passion redeemed by virtue. It is possible to infer that Tatyana sees Julie de Wolmar's passion closer to hers. Sophie Cuttin and Madame de Krudener are the French writers once read in Russia as French influence is great on Russian culture at that period. While she is in a passionate love with Onegin, she reads these witers' works and associates herself with the characters of these literary works. This is a sign of her naivety an her innocent and honest feelings unlike the other women of the society who are described best with Pushkin's own words; "Our terror is their (those women's) consolation" (Chapter 3, XXII). Unlike Onegin's rational thinking, Tatyana has a much more romantic, spiritual and sentimental world view so much so that she believes in "olden days in dreams and cards and their prediction" (Chapter 5, V). So as to interpret her dreams, she even reads Martin Zedaka, an interpreter of dreams. After her marriage, she gradually becomes like the ladies around her whom once she has detested; and from then on, Pushkin does not give any information about the books she reads. Most probably, she gives up reading just like Onegin as her life becomes dull and idle.

The book narrates beautifully the tragic love story between Tatyana and the cold, indifferent Eugene Onegin. It portrays the disenchantments, pain and suffering often caused by a one-way love, here represented by Tatyana's devotion and care for Onegin. Through Pushkin's rich descriptions, the intensity of the girl's passion is conveyed to the reader, as well as the pain and misery of his rejection and indifference to her confessions.

Another great book by Paulinna Simons! She never disappoints. If you have read others, read this one!

WOW, In 2001, I read the first book in this series (only I didn't know it was the first in a series until recently). I was incredibly moved by the love stoty in The Bronze Horseman and absolutely loved the characters. I was disappointed when it ended. For years, I checked to see if a sequel was out and after a while, forgot to check. A few months ago I discovered that Tatiana and Alexander was available and when it arrived in the mail, it was like a "bronze" gift. This book has a different writing syle but still filled me with more insight and stories of these two strong and resilient characters. It's one of those books that my family knows to "leave me alone when I'm reading" or else!
Can't wait to read the final book in the series.

I read this series in order. First is "The Bronze Horseman", second is this book "Tatiana & Alexander", and third is "The Summer Garden." They are all very long books. All three are exceptional!!! I laughed, I cried, I loved the couple like they were my personal friends. You really need to read them in order or else the sequels will bring up lots of questions/confusion. The Bronze Horseman is obviously open-ended leading to the sequel. You could read the second one, Tatiana & Alexander and stop there because it isn't obvious that there's a sequel. But I recommend the last one, The Summer Garden, because it is soooo good. I don't know when I got into a series more. Highly, highly recommended!!!!

Simons is launching herself up the charts of my favorite authors. I just finished reading this sequel to The Bronze Horseman (which you undoubtedly have to read prior to this incredible second installment) and I cannot believe how seamlessly Simons continues their story. My love for both Tatiana and Alexander's characters is so immense. Simons envelops you in these characters, and you not only accept it but will it even more. Her descriptions are so real, you feel as if you are experiencing all these things with Tatiana and Alexander, yet cannot imagine the endurance with which they have met all of their trials. Tatiana is an incredibly strong woman, and I admire her fortitude. Alexander likewise is maybe stronger, but in a different way. Both of them, through their love for each other, become only stronger. This is an incredible love story, war story, filled with grief and anguish, but most of all, hope.

On another note, it is extremely hard to find this book in the US. If you don't want to order it from the UK, you'll pretty much have to order it from Amazon.

Happy reading!

In this melodramatic, epic sequel to "The Bronze Horseman", Paullina Simons follows Tatiana and Alexander after their parting when Alexander is presumed dead, and pregnant Tatiana escapes to America via Finland and Sweden. Love and war are the two main motifs here and the story focuses more on Alexander, than on Tatiana (who was the central character in "The Bronze Horseman"), although the action goes back and forth between these two protagonists. Additionally, the time and space constraints do not apply (as opposed to "The Bronze Horseman" where the rules of chronology applied, here the narration is non-linear) - the action jumps freely between the past, when Alexander is a boy and a teenager, and present, when he struggles during the war as a prisoner and soldier, and between Alexander's journey from Russia to Germany, and Tatiana's life in the New York City with their baby son, Anthony.

The novel begins in Boston, in the 1930s, when Alexander's parents, the Barringtons, make the crucial decision to emigrate to the Soviet Union and renounce the American citizenship. This was already mentioned in "The Bronze Horseman", but here Alexander's family life and childhood in the Soviet Union are described in grisly detail. The disappointment with Communism and subsequent deterioration of the family shape Alexander into the tough, secretive man, living only for himself, desperate to survive, running away into the steppe and finally to Leningrad, where he becomes an officer in the Red Army - until he meets Tatiana and the love for her turns his life upside down. Alexander survives Soviet prison and interrogations, the work with the prisoners' battalion, the escape with the soldiers under his command through ruined Poland, running away from the ruthless, deathly Stalinist system, and the prisoners' camp in Germany, although he is starving, wounded and physically at the end of his capability. On his way, he meets Tatiana's long lost twin brother, only to lose him again, and tests the friendship and the military fidelity and discipline.

Tatiana in America holds to the strange, unexplainable belief, that in Europe torn apart by the war she can find her husband, although everyone believes him dead. All her efforts are directed only towards this goal, To reunite with Alexander, she overcomes unbelievable obstacles and, of course, they are finally reunited and move to Arizona (I hope this is not a spoiler, since it is the ending to be expected in such novel, isn't it?)... So that their story can be continued in the last part of the trilogy, "The Summer Garden", which I cannot wait to read.

Surely, the ending in Arizona is a little absurd (although, who knows, maybe it was possible then), as well as all the coincidences that bring Tatiana and Alexander together. When the novel is read as a romance, it is pretty old-fashioned (rare nowadays in the tradition of "Gone With the Wind", "Doctor Zhivago" or "The Blue Bicycle"), and no doubt, delivers its promise and is a material for a great movie. For me, the highest value of "Tatiana and Alexander" is in the fabularized background and descriptions of the reality of the Soviet life in the hardest period of the 1930s, the spies and moles, the interrogation methods. Paullina Simons was born in Leningrad, in the dissident family. Her parents and grandparents, heavily stricken by the Communist regime and the war, escaped to the US in 1973, when Paullina was 10, so probably she has some first-hand information about the times, which she faithfully portraited in her novels.

I loved reading "Walking on Ice." It's an easy-to-read fun book full of important insights into the Russian (and at times, American) culture.
For every Rusophile out there, I highly recommend it!

Andresen, an American doing business in Russia, has written a lovely book in a most UNbusinesslike style. It's quite literary, filled with surprising and poignant and insightful phrases. I'm not a business person, but am a "Russia" person, and love the warmth rising from this book about slippery, icy negotiations in a rather fluid environment. I'm also not a Russia expert by any means, but have been there many times and found myself nodding and smiling in appreciation while underlining passage after passage in this book. His comparison of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod is wonderful, and makes it clear why we must become well acquainted with all three great cities. His use of music and literature to explain cultural (and business) practices is most enlightening, and the essay collection is simply outstanding. This book will be of great help to all who wish to understand Russia and her people better.

This is an excellent read which provides a detailed and insightful guide to the nuances of perhaps the most misunderstood, enigmatic and complex country to grace the earth. It's a survival guide to contemporary Russian culture.

Having lived, worked, and personally invested with the Russian people, Mr. Andresen clearly has a first-hand vision on building lasting relationships with people we often don't appreciate or understand. Clearly, he has invested a good part of his life in learning and expressing to us what it takes to succeed in this part of the world.

Walking on Ice is a "must read" for American politicians, businessmen, students, or anyone who wants to dive beneath the illusive surface to gain some insight into the Russian mind set. Sadly, all too often we enter the arena of foreign affairs naively thinking we can interact in the same manner as we would with Americans. Granted, Mr. Andresen had a preliminary advantage of being familiar with Russian art, music, and culture; but I believe his success was also due to his gift of being a humbly receptive observer which enabled him to uncover the subconscious intent of those he was negotiating with. This enabled him, when he found himself on "slippery ground," to take the next step in the right direction. This discernment is what he shares with his readers, giving a "nutshell" feeling of how to stay on your feet in the Russian culture. Packed within 142 pages is an insightful guide sprinkled with humor.

I have read many books about Russia and the Soviet era. I am shocked by the details of life under Stalin. I always knew millions had died. However, I never realized how evil this period was. It is almost beyond belief how communism broke all standards of human decency. It is really beyond belief to read how the Russian people basically ate itself alive via their leadership.

I seem to be on a roll. I recently read about abuses in North Korea and China. Also here there are also shocking stories of abuse.

Over the years I've read many books about Russian and Soviet history, from Roy Medvedev's "Let History Judge"to Montefiore's "Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar," with significant stops along the way for Solzhenitsyn's magisterial polemic "The Gulag Archipelago." Orlando Fige's "The Whisperers" is one of the best single-volume studies of life in Soviet times I have read. It is a fairly long book, but very engaging: I found myself reading 30 to 50 pages at a stretch. There is a cast of characters as long as in one of Tolstoy's great novels, but these are all real people, describing or recollecting their experiences in Stalin's Russia. It is a tribute to Mr. Figes that he arranges the narratives in such a way that this reader was never confused following the threads of so many lives over the course of such turbulent decades. In addition, Figes provides short accounts of the ideological, political and economic shifts in the Kremlin which directly influenced the lives of the people in the chapters which follow. For conciseness, clarity and readability, his narrative is outstanding when he writes about the NEP, Stalin's anti-Kulak campaign and collectivization of the countryside, the rapid rise of the Gulag and slave labor as a mainstay of the Soviet economy, and the malign influence on family relations of the1930s propaganda cult surrounding Pavel Morozov. Figes includes information in this book which I've simply not seen in histories before. He shows floor plans of communal apartments which makes clear how little privacy many urban dwellers in Moscow and Leningrad had at home, and how Stalin's regime nurtured malicious watchers as well as whisperers. The diary and letter extracts in "The Whisperers" can be deeply moving. There is a photo in the book of Nikolai Kondratiev's letter to his daughter Elena, written from a labor camp. It shows a drawing he'd done illustrating a fairy-tale in verse he'd written for Elena entitled "The Unusual Adventures of Shammi." The drawing is simple, the verse is charming. It makes one think of how many millions of times in different times and places parents have entertained their children by spinning stories. But the circumstances here are grotesque: Kondratiev was one of millions of innocents imprisoned under Stalin. And the outcome is tragic: in 1938 he was shot by a firing squad. This is just one example of the dozens of different accounts of lives of ordinary people warped or crushed by this monstrous regime. The sum of such narratives creates a very rich mosaic of a society and its time which even those of us who have visited Russia in the recent past have difficulties understanding.

In the long essay which follows the fictional story of War and Peace, Tolstoy first developed the concept that armies are not just regiments of men following the will of their commander, but individuals who have individual consciences. History isn't just the deeds of Napoleon and Alexander, but of each aristocrat, tradesman, artisan or peasant who fought in the Napoleonic wars, and of their families back home. Each of their lives is as worthy of examination as that of any Tsar or Generalissimo. Because of this, I think Tolstoy is properly the godfather of oral history. Orlando Figes has done a great job gathering and editing the accounts of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people living during the cruelest years of Stalinism. He also conveys the sense of freedom and comradeship experienced by many during the worst days of the second World War (which the Soviets hallowed as the "Great Patriotic War"), a mistaken sense of freedom which landed Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag. For all these reasons, I think old Tolstoy might be pleased in literary heaven could he only read these accounts of real lives and real consciences played out in the pages of "The Whisperers."

One small caveat: Kirill Simonov was a very successful writer in the Stalin literary establishment who came of age during World War II. Because of his public life of letters and his colorful personal life he occupies many pages in "The Whisperers." As was the case with many successful people in the Arts world under Stalin, Simonov was morally compromised. (I'm paraphrasing Lev Kopelev, but that writer has a pithy quote that "Every society has bad people who do bad things. But under communism, good people were encouraged to do bad things." This describes Simonov.) For better or worse, and because he wrote so much and was so active for all the decades from the Thirties until the Seventies, Simonov emerges as the main "character" in this book. This has its merits, but it also throws into harsh relief the fact that many of the less-lettered accounts in this oral history don't always seem as real, or as present, as Simonov. Because this is a history and not a work of fiction I'm not sure this imbalance could ever have been effectively redressed, but the imbalance is there.

A final word of praise: I've travelled to Russia several times since the overdue demise of the Soviet Union, and seen life change radically not only because of the introduction of Russian-style market capitalism, but because a generation has grown up without memory of life under communism. Figes points out that young people in Russia have no great interest in what to them has also become the story of an alien life lived by grandparents and great-grandparents during the 5-year plans. The people who do remember are old, dying out, with failing memories. "The Whisperers," and the archives on which it is based, is commendable because it helps to save so many of these survivors' accounts to historical memory.

Figes had already established himself as perhaps the preeminent historian of modern Russia before this book came out but with its publication he has confirmed that claim many times over.
When reading about the years of Stalin's tyranny it is easy to become inundated by the scale of the suffering inflicted on so many people with such murderous persistence. There is a tendency to become removed from the enormous numbers and see it all in a rather academic light.
Figes succeeds brilliantly in preventing that by giving each victim a name, a family, and a story while still being able to convey a very vivid sense of the scale of the crimes committed in the name of The People.
Strange as it may seem, this is a book that speaks with warmth and humanity on every page - the humanity of the victims, those who fought and fell, as well those who continue to fight against their memories and suffering. And also the humanity of a writer able to convey their stories with such astounding sensitivity and compassion. Highly recommended.

It amazes me that with all the information that has been released from the Russian archives with regards to the Stalinist period that there are still influential people in the west who minimize or excuse the crimes of Stalin's regime. Oh, there are people around who deny the crimes of Hitler as well. The difference is that those who deny the crimes of Hitler are ostracized and in some countries even subject to criminal sanctions. But those who deny or minimize the crimes of Stalin and his henchmen are generally given a pass in Western societies. I have often wondered why that is, maybe the best answer is that that left-leaning elites consider the Stalinist terror a minor error made in the service of a "just" cause. It is ironic that many of Stalin's biggest supporters in the US were Russian emigres and their offspring and many of those were embedded in opinion-shaping professions here such as education, journalism and film-making. So maybe its no wonder that we still have apologists for communism in prominent positions.
The Whisperers is a fine history that should help put further to rest any idea that Stalin was any less of a monster than Hitler. It doesn't serve any purpose to argue about which man was responsible for more deaths. One is just as dead whether the bullet that kills you comes from the gun of an SS man or from the gun of an NKVD executioner. One is just as dead whether he was killed because of his ethnicity, religion, or because he was a "kulak". What you will learn in The Whisperers is how millions of people were cowed into accepting the necessity of the brutality of the Stalinist regime and in the end wound up looking only after their own interests. Though some decent people remained, friend turned on friend, neighbor on neighbor, and relatives on one another in a desperate bid to avoid that knock on the door in the middle of the night that meant exile or worse.
I won't rehash the story, others have done so. But if you have any interest in gaining a broader knowledge of the machinations of the Communist police state, the human tragedy it spawned, and how it impacted ordinary Soviet citizens then The Whisperers is highly recommended. Orlando Figes has painstakingly woven together a complex web of anecdotal evidence of communism's crimes through the stories of a number of survivors of Stalin's terror whose trust he earned enough for them to be forthcoming enough to tell the tragic stories you read here. Once you finish the book, you may feel as though you actually know some of the people whose stories are told. It may be heavy reading, and its a thick book, but the understanding you'll gain will make it more than worth the effort expended.

I learned about the book The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, by Orlando Figes due to Amazon.com which linked it with my memoir that was published recently. My first thought was that a person like me, who was born in Soviet Russia in the middle of the thirties, read a lot of about Stalin's time could hardly find much new in The Whisperers.

I left Soviet Russia at the end of 1988 and had witnessed many events, some of which were described in Orlando Figes' book. I was able to find and read a few books that were prohibited in the USSR. I didn't know the author of The Whisperers, never read his books before, and doubted that a foreign writer would be able to find many unknown details about this gloomy tragic time. Nevertheless, I decided to read it for the sake of curiosity.

I was hugely impressed; the book literally overwhelmed me. The author has done an incredible job interviewing thousands of people - victims of many years of terror. Those people were among the lucky few who managed to survive. I must say that the author recreated the forest while paying attention to each tree.

Telling about the fates of individual people and their families, the author shows what was going on in the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain. Living in the USSR over 50 years, I knew and had read a lot, but reading The Whisperers I felt indescribable pain and horror. Fates of hundreds of thousands, even millions of Soviet people were possible to describe with the same four words: falsely accused, arrested and shot. And what was even more horrible, all of this became habitual.

Recalling that not very remote time, I think about one more phenomenon: despite everything that was going on in the country, people wanted to live a normal life. In the daytime, they worked, entertained, attended theaters, movies and were busy with other activities. But at night they could learn that they, or their relatives, or their friends, or people they knew for a long time, all of a sudden, had become "enemies of the people," and were arrested, disappearing forever.

Orlando Figes in his The Whisperers showed very truthfully, through the tragic lives of many thousands of victims, one of the most awful political systems - totalitarian power. I would like everybody to read this book, both supporters and opponents of democracy. The opponents vividly will see that the totalitarian system is deadly for all, and the supporters one more time will be convinced that democracy is weak; it is needed to be defended.

In his book, the author of The Whisperers described in detail the years 1917 to 1956. Stalin died in 1953. It was the time when I began to understand events and the difference between slogans and reality; I began to realize that the Soviet power was killing in people everything human. The author showed great insight and deepness describing those times. But most importantly, he noticed that the fear of Great Terror penetrated deeply into Soviet people's souls and didn't disappear. He wrote that the KGB " had access to a huge range of draconian punishments ... and its power of surveillance...instilled fear in anyone...who could be seen as anti-Soviet." I still remember that paralyzing fear, but I also remember that despite that fear, people were
dying to have a human life; Soviet power wasn't able to kill in people everything and this could be seen as a victory of humanity. "Human spirit cannot be destroyed" as Mr. Tsitrin wrote in his review." I would be extremely glad to see this topic as Orlando Figes' next project about Soviet Russia.

I would like to emphasize the actuality of Orlando Figes' book, especially now, in Putin's time when, according to the author, "the restoration of authoritarian government encouraged many Russians to return to their reticent habits."

I strongly recommend everybody to read the book. Nothing should be forgotten because what is forgotten has a tendency to be repeated.

Sol Tetelbaum.

I have read many books about Russia and the Soviet era. I am shocked by the details of life under Stalin. I always knew millions had died. However, I never realized how evil this period was. It is almost beyond belief how communism broke all standards of human decency. It is really beyond belief to read how the Russian people basically ate itself alive via their leadership.

I seem to be on a roll. I recently read about abuses in North Korea and China. Also here there are also shocking stories of abuse.

Over the years I've read many books about Russian and Soviet history, from Roy Medvedev's "Let History Judge"to Montefiore's "Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar," with significant stops along the way for Solzhenitsyn's magisterial polemic "The Gulag Archipelago." Orlando Fige's "The Whisperers" is one of the best single-volume studies of life in Soviet times I have read. It is a fairly long book, but very engaging: I found myself reading 30 to 50 pages at a stretch. There is a cast of characters as long as in one of Tolstoy's great novels, but these are all real people, describing or recollecting their experiences in Stalin's Russia. It is a tribute to Mr. Figes that he arranges the narratives in such a way that this reader was never confused following the threads of so many lives over the course of such turbulent decades. In addition, Figes provides short accounts of the ideological, political and economic shifts in the Kremlin which directly influenced the lives of the people in the chapters which follow. For conciseness, clarity and readability, his narrative is outstanding when he writes about the NEP, Stalin's anti-Kulak campaign and collectivization of the countryside, the rapid rise of the Gulag and slave labor as a mainstay of the Soviet economy, and the malign influence on family relations of the1930s propaganda cult surrounding Pavel Morozov. Figes includes information in this book which I've simply not seen in histories before. He shows floor plans of communal apartments which makes clear how little privacy many urban dwellers in Moscow and Leningrad had at home, and how Stalin's regime nurtured malicious watchers as well as whisperers. The diary and letter extracts in "The Whisperers" can be deeply moving. There is a photo in the book of Nikolai Kondratiev's letter to his daughter Elena, written from a labor camp. It shows a drawing he'd done illustrating a fairy-tale in verse he'd written for Elena entitled "The Unusual Adventures of Shammi." The drawing is simple, the verse is charming. It makes one think of how many millions of times in different times and places parents have entertained their children by spinning stories. But the circumstances here are grotesque: Kondratiev was one of millions of innocents imprisoned under Stalin. And the outcome is tragic: in 1938 he was shot by a firing squad. This is just one example of the dozens of different accounts of lives of ordinary people warped or crushed by this monstrous regime. The sum of such narratives creates a very rich mosaic of a society and its time which even those of us who have visited Russia in the recent past have difficulties understanding.

In the long essay which follows the fictional story of War and Peace, Tolstoy first developed the concept that armies are not just regiments of men following the will of their commander, but individuals who have individual consciences. History isn't just the deeds of Napoleon and Alexander, but of each aristocrat, tradesman, artisan or peasant who fought in the Napoleonic wars, and of their families back home. Each of their lives is as worthy of examination as that of any Tsar or Generalissimo. Because of this, I think Tolstoy is properly the godfather of oral history. Orlando Figes has done a great job gathering and editing the accounts of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people living during the cruelest years of Stalinism. He also conveys the sense of freedom and comradeship experienced by many during the worst days of the second World War (which the Soviets hallowed as the "Great Patriotic War"), a mistaken sense of freedom which landed Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag. For all these reasons, I think old Tolstoy might be pleased in literary heaven could he only read these accounts of real lives and real consciences played out in the pages of "The Whisperers."

One small caveat: Kirill Simonov was a very successful writer in the Stalin literary establishment who came of age during World War II. Because of his public life of letters and his colorful personal life he occupies many pages in "The Whisperers." As was the case with many successful people in the Arts world under Stalin, Simonov was morally compromised. (I'm paraphrasing Lev Kopelev, but that writer has a pithy quote that "Every society has bad people who do bad things. But under communism, good people were encouraged to do bad things." This describes Simonov.) For better or worse, and because he wrote so much and was so active for all the decades from the Thirties until the Seventies, Simonov emerges as the main "character" in this book. This has its merits, but it also throws into harsh relief the fact that many of the less-lettered accounts in this oral history don't always seem as real, or as present, as Simonov. Because this is a history and not a work of fiction I'm not sure this imbalance could ever have been effectively redressed, but the imbalance is there.

A final word of praise: I've travelled to Russia several times since the overdue demise of the Soviet Union, and seen life change radically not only because of the introduction of Russian-style market capitalism, but because a generation has grown up without memory of life under communism. Figes points out that young people in Russia have no great interest in what to them has also become the story of an alien life lived by grandparents and great-grandparents during the 5-year plans. The people who do remember are old, dying out, with failing memories. "The Whisperers," and the archives on which it is based, is commendable because it helps to save so many of these survivors' accounts to historical memory.

Figes had already established himself as perhaps the preeminent historian of modern Russia before this book came out but with its publication he has confirmed that claim many times over.
When reading about the years of Stalin's tyranny it is easy to become inundated by the scale of the suffering inflicted on so many people with such murderous persistence. There is a tendency to become removed from the enormous numbers and see it all in a rather academic light.
Figes succeeds brilliantly in preventing that by giving each victim a name, a family, and a story while still being able to convey a very vivid sense of the scale of the crimes committed in the name of The People.
Strange as it may seem, this is a book that speaks with warmth and humanity on every page - the humanity of the victims, those who fought and fell, as well those who continue to fight against their memories and suffering. And also the humanity of a writer able to convey their stories with such astounding sensitivity and compassion. Highly recommended.

It amazes me that with all the information that has been released from the Russian archives with regards to the Stalinist period that there are still influential people in the west who minimize or excuse the crimes of Stalin's regime. Oh, there are people around who deny the crimes of Hitler as well. The difference is that those who deny the crimes of Hitler are ostracized and in some countries even subject to criminal sanctions. But those who deny or minimize the crimes of Stalin and his henchmen are generally given a pass in Western societies. I have often wondered why that is, maybe the best answer is that that left-leaning elites consider the Stalinist terror a minor error made in the service of a "just" cause. It is ironic that many of Stalin's biggest supporters in the US were Russian emigres and their offspring and many of those were embedded in opinion-shaping professions here such as education, journalism and film-making. So maybe its no wonder that we still have apologists for communism in prominent positions.
The Whisperers is a fine history that should help put further to rest any idea that Stalin was any less of a monster than Hitler. It doesn't serve any purpose to argue about which man was responsible for more deaths. One is just as dead whether the bullet that kills you comes from the gun of an SS man or from the gun of an NKVD executioner. One is just as dead whether he was killed because of his ethnicity, religion, or because he was a "kulak". What you will learn in The Whisperers is how millions of people were cowed into accepting the necessity of the brutality of the Stalinist regime and in the end wound up looking only after their own interests. Though some decent people remained, friend turned on friend, neighbor on neighbor, and relatives on one another in a desperate bid to avoid that knock on the door in the middle of the night that meant exile or worse.
I won't rehash the story, others have done so. But if you have any interest in gaining a broader knowledge of the machinations of the Communist police state, the human tragedy it spawned, and how it impacted ordinary Soviet citizens then The Whisperers is highly recommended. Orlando Figes has painstakingly woven together a complex web of anecdotal evidence of communism's crimes through the stories of a number of survivors of Stalin's terror whose trust he earned enough for them to be forthcoming enough to tell the tragic stories you read here. Once you finish the book, you may feel as though you actually know some of the people whose stories are told. It may be heavy reading, and its a thick book, but the understanding you'll gain will make it more than worth the effort expended.

I learned about the book The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, by Orlando Figes due to Amazon.com which linked it with my memoir that was published recently. My first thought was that a person like me, who was born in Soviet Russia in the middle of the thirties, read a lot of about Stalin's time could hardly find much new in The Whisperers.

I left Soviet Russia at the end of 1988 and had witnessed many events, some of which were described in Orlando Figes' book. I was able to find and read a few books that were prohibited in the USSR. I didn't know the author of The Whisperers, never read his books before, and doubted that a foreign writer would be able to find many unknown details about this gloomy tragic time. Nevertheless, I decided to read it for the sake of curiosity.

I was hugely impressed; the book literally overwhelmed me. The author has done an incredible job interviewing thousands of people - victims of many years of terror. Those people were among the lucky few who managed to survive. I must say that the author recreated the forest while paying attention to each tree.

Telling about the fates of individual people and their families, the author shows what was going on in the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain. Living in the USSR over 50 years, I knew and had read a lot, but reading The Whisperers I felt indescribable pain and horror. Fates of hundreds of thousands, even millions of Soviet people were possible to describe with the same four words: falsely accused, arrested and shot. And what was even more horrible, all of this became habitual.

Recalling that not very remote time, I think about one more phenomenon: despite everything that was going on in the country, people wanted to live a normal life. In the daytime, they worked, entertained, attended theaters, movies and were busy with other activities. But at night they could learn that they, or their relatives, or their friends, or people they knew for a long time, all of a sudden, had become "enemies of the people," and were arrested, disappearing forever.

Orlando Figes in his The Whisperers showed very truthfully, through the tragic lives of many thousands of victims, one of the most awful political systems - totalitarian power. I would like everybody to read this book, both supporters and opponents of democracy. The opponents vividly will see that the totalitarian system is deadly for all, and the supporters one more time will be convinced that democracy is weak; it is needed to be defended.

In his book, the author of The Whisperers described in detail the years 1917 to 1956. Stalin died in 1953. It was the time when I began to understand events and the difference between slogans and reality; I began to realize that the Soviet power was killing in people everything human. The author showed great insight and deepness describing those times. But most importantly, he noticed that the fear of Great Terror penetrated deeply into Soviet people's souls and didn't disappear. He wrote that the KGB " had access to a huge range of draconian punishments ... and its power of surveillance...instilled fear in anyone...who could be seen as anti-Soviet." I still remember that paralyzing fear, but I also remember that despite that fear, people were
dying to have a human life; Soviet power wasn't able to kill in people everything and this could be seen as a victory of humanity. "Human spirit cannot be destroyed" as Mr. Tsitrin wrote in his review." I would be extremely glad to see this topic as Orlando Figes' next project about Soviet Russia.

I would like to emphasize the actuality of Orlando Figes' book, especially now, in Putin's time when, according to the author, "the restoration of authoritarian government encouraged many Russians to return to their reticent habits."

I strongly recommend everybody to read the book. Nothing should be forgotten because what is forgotten has a tendency to be repeated.

Sol Tetelbaum.

I have not been able to find any single travel book that covers as much useful information as this! I will be traveling the Trans-Siberian rail this summer, and this book has been a constant companion through my planning process. Detailed information on all of the towns and cities along the way along with maps to avoid getting lost while wandering. Definitely a bonus for the all of the information on smaller towns- it's very difficult to find a travel-worthy guide book that covers more than just St. Petersburg and Moscow, not to mention UB!

Can't recommend this book higher to anyone considering journeying the Trans-Siberian Railway!

I bought it as part of a package deal, and it never arrived.

Because I plan to trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway next year I bought this book hoping to read some advice and tips on how to travel the whole trip, where to stay, how much it costs, where to stay etc.

But his book absolutely surpassed all my expectations!! There are not only those tips on trans-siberian rail, but also "travel guides" for cities like Moscow, Irkutsk and even tips on how to get to Mongolia, where to stay in Ulan-Bator and so forth.

I have no idea how I would plan my trip without this book! It's really amazing how much information (and even with tips from other "ordinary" travellers!!) is in that, for instance bus-numbers from Moscow airport heading to the center of the city ...

The book absolutely worth the money.

For passengers on traveling on all or most of the Trans-Siberian Railway and visiting the cities along it, there are only two English-language travel guides. The Lonely Planet guide appeared in 2003 with a second edition in 2006, while Bryn Thomas updates his guide almost yearly and in 2007 it reached its seventh edition. I'm a two-time veteran of the Trans-Siberian, using the 1st edition of the Lonely Planet on the eastbound Trans-Manchurian route, and the 2nd edition on the eastbound Trans-Mongolian. When I recently discovered Bryn Thomas' guide in the local library, however, it struck me as the guide that I wish I had had on the trip.

The Lonely Planet guide and Thomas' have much in common. Both include a history of Russia in the Trans-Siberian era and general information about culture. They both give sightseeing guidance and lodging listings for the cities along the way. The LP sticks to the three traditional routes between Moscow and Beijing or Vladivostok, but Thomas has now added Yakutsk, soon to be accessible by rail) and other possible rail terminus cities like Prague and Hong Kong.

What makes Thomas' guide real special is his enthusiasm for the train journey itself. Unlike the LP guide, he gives timetables for the route, truly equipping the reader to prepare for the trip without having to look for too much information outside the book. Thomas discusses in detail the layout of carriages, specifics of what the carriage attendant can do for those under her charge, and things to look out for at kilometre markers along the way. The LP guide has little about the journey itself, and what little interesting information it did have in the first edition disappeared in the second.

Thomas' tone is also much more pleasant to read than in the common guidebooks for independent travelers. He doesn't try to sell you places you have already decided to visit with an overuse of words like "vibrant" and "spectacular". I also admire that he succeeds in writing for a general audience. While some of the accomodation listings are pricey, it doesn't feel like he is dismissing backpackers like certain sell-out guidebook lines.

I don't think I will ever travel the Trans-Siberian all the way again. While still fairly low considering the distance, fares are rising and I usually have the three free weeks needed to hitchhike from Europe to Ulan-Ude or Vladivostok. Nonetheless, I'd certainly recommend this to travelers planning a trip that is well-worth doing at least once.

My friend and I did part of the trip last summer, and the guide was simply invaluable. We were in the major cities decribed in the book, and we took the train Irkutsk--Ulaan Baator. The book was very helpful both when we were planning the trip (has train schedules) and on the spot, directing us to places of interest. Overall, gives you a good idea what to expect. Start reading the guide at least half a year before the planned trip. You'll need good 4 to 5 months to arrange everything.

A marvelous book. The author is to be commended for his ability to recall these events from the vantage of so young an age at the time of occurrence. This story is little known, sometimes actively forgotten, almost always disregarded in the record of 20th century crimes against humanity. I had the privilege recently of speaking, literally for only a few minutes, at the funeral of an older man (born 1922) from Rowne--only a few miles from Adamczyk's hometown, Luck. A decade older, he tried to get to Hungary in October, 1939, failed, and was therefore a criminal for having made the attempt. His story, then, was of direct prisons rather than of being dumped by the side of the tracks. Each situation had its advantages and disadvantages. The man from Rowne was "amnestied" from Norilsk, above the Arctic Circle, in late 1941, and his story paralleled that of Adamczyk until arrival in Persia, emaciated--at 86 pounds at age 20 and suffering recurring malaria. There are a million of these stories; more should be published.

I am sitting here struggling to find the words to begin to express my love for this book. I have just spent the past twenty-six hours not putting this book down. Now, I don't know if it is the fact that my family had delt with these similar circumstances and moved to the same area of Chicago, but i have never felt so connected/transported to individuals in a book as I did with this one.

The ugliness of reality balanced with hope, faith, and love render this reader, at least, speechless. I can only thank Mr. Adamczyk for a glimpse of what my family had found to difficult, with good reason, to talk about. This book has left me with a greater understanding of World War II, the atrocities of a Communist rule, and a deeper appreciation of my Polish faith and heritage.

This book reflects the resilience of the human spirit even in the most devistating of circumstances and stands as an inspiration to reflect on the freedom we too often take for granted.

...Wow!

Simply stated, this book reiterates everything my grandpa told me about the Russians' way of life and their mentality brought on by the deceitful communist system full of oppression and anti-western propaganda. Read and you will begin to fathom the injustice inflicted upon the peoples, both Polish and Russian. It will take generations to undo the damage.

Anyone with half a brain might wonder why the Nazis are still minced to pieces in all media 60 years after the war's end, while the Soviets, with 70 years of blood on their hands, have passed quietly out of their Communist terrorism without any great international trials or severe criticisms by the Western media. Is it because the leftists still believe that "true Communism" has yet to be attempted? Well, perhaps, there are such fringe lunatics still around (in the Frisco and NYC areas).

No, the real answer lies in the deadly dealings of the Allies in WWII, in cooperating with Stalin in the Lend-lease supply of materiel, and in not condemning the murders, exile, and starvation of the Poles before Germany attacked Russia. In our all-out effort to defeat the Nazis, the USA and England cooperated in suppressing the knowledge of the 5,000 Polish officers and Polish civilians shot and buried by the Soviets in 1939, when they invaded and took over Eastern Poland. This famous massacre in the Katyn Forest was for years blamed on Hitler, when the Germans had not yet been in that side of Poland. Only when Gorbachev came to power was the murder order signed by Stalin made public - but Roosevelt knew, as did Churchill.

This remarkable book takes us into the frightening world Wiesiu Adamczck, a seven-year-old boy when his father, then 47, was taken away and killed in Katyn Forest, unbeknownst to his family - Wiesiu's mother, older sister and brother. They are all packed up on trains and sent to Kazakistan, as members of a bourgeois oppresser class, they must be punished according to Soviet logic.

The writer, now a man in his 70's, is an excellent wordsmith, who doesn't stint in telling what Russian and Polish expressions mean. He dwells on his own family, his own people and the terrible consequences of the Communist regime for the people of the USSR, for the Poles, and for all nations which fell to its avarice and terror after WWII. His incredible adventures, if you want to call them that, in surviving such a deportation through the Eastern republics of the chaotic war years, into Persia and finally to England, then the USA, is a ten-year journey of incredible hardship, hunger, cold and homelessness. His mother dies, and the truth about the father is known at the end of years of hoping against hope.

What Hollywood or the BBC could do with this material! The story of the Soviet empire and all its disgusting inhumanity should be aired out thoroughly, even more so than the Nazis' philosophy. If it should take root again, woe betide the planet and the millions to be starved in the future.

This book should be mandatory reading in the US high schools, as many students will never know that non-Jewish-descended EUropeans also suffered dreadful consequences during the war.

A skewered history is often a false one, and that is slowly happening throughout the US media, in omitting the Communist side of the horrendous torture and killing from 1917-onwards.

Well, this book will make it clear: FDR knew it, as he knew that Pearl Harbor was to be bombed.

The teaching of history is often distorted by selective presentation of past events. Virtually everyone has heard of the 5-6 million Jews killed by the Germans. Few outside Polish circles have a clue about the fact that 2-3 million gentile Poles were also murdered by the Germans, and a few hundred thousand by the Soviets--first as Poland's sworn enemy and then as an "ally". While Churchill and Roosevelt were dilly-dallying with "Uncle Joe" Stalin, he was still murdering Poles and executing his plans to deprive "liberated" Poland from her rightful independence, freedom, and sovereignity. The western powers shamelessly disregarded the Atlantic Charter and betrayed the Poles--who all along had been fighting on their side on just about every front, and who had played a significant, if not decisive, role in preventing the Luftwaffe from achieving air supremacy over the English skies as a prelude to the planned German invasion (Operation Sea Lion).

This work provides an absorbing personal account of the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Poles by the Soviet Union following the German-Soviet conquest of Poland in 1939. Wes Adamczyk, then a boy of 7, was to lose his father in the infamous Katyn Massacre, and his entire family was uprooted and sent to a living death in Kazakhstan. He was one of the lucky few to be released and to eventually find his way to a new life in the United States. Decades later, he fulfilled his wish to visit the site of his father's murder near Smolensk, Russia.

The reader is exposed to the brutality of the Soviet police as they ransack the Adamczyk home, destroy objects related to Polish patriotism, and herd the family ("enemies of the people") into overcrowded trains for the fateful trip east. Every day becomes a battle for survival. They are near starvation. However, individual Kazakhs and Russians show friendship towards the Poles. The young Adamczyk befriends Mr. Petrovitch on a fishing boat. The moving account tells how the elderly Russian teaches the boy the truth about Communism. It is lies on top of lies on top of lies. In fact, the continued spying by the Soviet police on the captive Poles does not stem from the fact that they suspect that the Poles may escape or revolt. The spying comes from the fear that the locals may learn the truth about the outside world from the Poles--that the non-
Communist world is not rotten, and that the Soviet Union is no workers' paradise.

Nazi Germany turns against its erstwhile Soviet ally, creating a chance for the Poles, consigned to eventual death from starvation, overwork, and disease, to escape the Gulag. Negotiations "succeed" in securing the release of captive Poles. But the Soviets drag their feet, and only a fraction of still-living captive Poles end up being released. The Adamczyk family has to stage a near-escape adventure to reach Iran. The squalor of the just-freed Poles is indescribable. Thousands die right there, including Wes Adamczyk's mother--ironically just a short time after having finally left the clutches of the Soviet hell.

Tens of thousands of previously-captured Polish officers are found to be conspicuously and unexpectedly missing, and the Soviets say, "They all escaped to Manchuria". As time drags on, the Adamczyks realize the fate of their father and the remainder of the POWs. The Soviets don't admit responsibility for the Katyn Massacre until 1990. The long cover-up by western governments is little better than the decades-long Soviet one. The west needed a second coverup to cover its first coverup of the conspiracy of silence about this heinous Soviet crime.

The Adamczyks, like all surviving Poles, get a cruel blow when they learn that Roosevelt and Churchill have betrayed their faithful ally Poland by giving away eastern Poland to the Russians, and allowed a Communist puppet state to be forced on the rest of "liberated" Poland. In a sense, all of the Polish sufferings and sacrifices turn out to have been in vain. The Adamczyks, and millions of other Poles, have no home to return to. The only "happy ending" is a new life in America.

This book was purchased for a college research project and it was just perfect. It talks of Kandinsky's color theory and how music and color co-exist. The seller was professional and I got the book when it was promised. I would order from this seller again...definately!

Wassilly Kadinsky was a 20th century painter and his CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART provides a blend of philosophical, spiritual and artistic reflection as it examines the premises and presence of spirituality in art. This new edition is a recommended pick not just for art students of modernism, but for readers of spiritual works: it includes letters between Kadinsky and Sadler, unpublished prose poems, and a fine attention to artistic reflection and analysis.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I enjoyed reading the book. At times it was over my head,but still it was worth the effort!!!!

Kandinsky throws his ideas out in a slightly esoteric manner. It make take a few rereads to really grasp the quality of discourse he presents. But, in the end, his commentary shines brightly through his comparisons of music to painting. The spiritual triangle is comparable to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It is important to remember that Kandinsky is not using the term "spiritual" in a religious sense.
This book is a very good read for anyone feeling slumped in their art making. And for anyone who wants to expose themselves to ways of thinking about art. By the third time I had read the material I had underlined and highlighted almost every line and filled all the margins with notes. The book is fantastic. It is especially good when paired with Hans Hofmann's essay "In Search for the Real." Although the ideas in the two books do not parallel. In fact the lines aren't even on the same page. Kandinksky's critiques of other familiar artists are very interesting too. Names like picasso and Cezanne pop up quite a bit.
I'll stop rambling now. Read the book, it is very good.

Kandinsky had risen to positions of influence in other disciplines (political science/economics and law) before directing his considerable intellect to painting. His insights extended into the historic 'meta' trends of the arts and sciences, including the physical sciences, and had his interests been directed more to the history and philosophy of science instead of the history and philosophy of art, he might have written Kuhn's observations regarding paradigm change a half century before Kuhn did: "Here and there are people with eyes which can see, minds which can correlate. They say to themselves: 'If the science of the day before yesterday is rejected by the people of yesterday, and that of yesterday by us of today, is it not possible that what we call science now will be rejected by the men of tomorrow?' And the bravest of them answer, 'It is possible.'"

Instead, Kandinsky extended the frontiers of painting and authored philosophic writings on the future of art that are among the most important of such works. M.T.H. Sadler, who translated this work into English, was a friend of Kandinsky's and was among his early admirers. The notes he has written in the front of the book (Translator's Introduction) are therefore more helpful than could be the opinions of many other critics, including myself:

"Anyone who has studied Gauguin will be aware of the intense spiritual value of his work. The man is a preacher and a psychologist, universal by his very unorthodoxy, fundamental because he goes deeper than civilization. In his disciples this great element is wanting.

"Kandinsky has supplied the need. He is not only on the track of an art more purely spiritual than was conceived even by Gauguin, but he has achieved the final abandonment of all representative intention. In this way he combines in himself the spiritual and technical tendencies of one great branch of Post-Impressionism.

"The question most generally asked about Kandinsky's art is: 'What is he trying to do?' It is to be hoped that this book will do something towards answering the question. But it will not do everything. This--partly because it is impossible to put into words the whole of Kandinsky's ideal, partly because in his anxiety to state his case, to court criticism, the author has been tempted to formulate more than is wise. His analysis of colours and their effects on the spectator is not the real basis of his art, because, if it were, one could, with the help of a scientific manual, describe one's emotions before his pictures with perfect accuracy. And this is impossible.

"Kandinsky is painting music. That is to say, he has broken down the barrier between music and painting, and has isolated the pure emotion which, for want of a better name, we call the artistic emotion. Anyone who has listened to good music with any enjoyment will admit to an unmistakable but quite indefinable thrill. He will not be able, with sincerity, to say that such a passage gave him such visual impressions, or such a harmony roused in him such emotions. The effect of music is too subtle for words. And the same with this painting of Kandinsky's. Speaking for myself, to stand in front of some of his drawings or pictures gives a keener and more spiritual pleasure than any other kind of painting. But I could not express in the least what gives the pleasure. Presumably the lines and colours have the same effect as harmony and rhythm in music have on the truly musical. That psychology comes in no one can deny."

Some aspects of Kandinsky's color theory are dubious, at best they cannot be universalized, and Kandinsky sees this. But other of his ideas and arguments are widely accepted among artists, even as being self-evident. Stating that "there is no 'must' in art, because art is free," that is, free to address external representations OR "the inner need," to merely chase after material 'objects' OR to wrestle with the mysteriously spiritual, to somehow meld the two visions OR to stay purely to exploration of the spiritual high ground, Kandinsky absolutely rejects the materialistic expectation of an art "explanation" that has been articulated by EO Wilson in his unfortunate daydream 'Consilience' (Wilson knows ants better than he knows humans, and is given to understanding humans to be essentially ant equivalents).

Anyone interested in art history, painting of the past century, or the relationships/correlations/divergences of the various arts (visual, musical, literary), as well as anyone interested in the meaning and purpose of art, or in the philosophy of aesthetics, should read this important book, perhaps more than once.

This was a very well-crafted and informative book, which I would recommend reading to those who haven't yet. For those who have, and who enjoyed it like I did, I would recommend Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival, which George Kennan's account of his travels around eastern Siberia on dogs and reindeer sleds.

The Other Side of Russia is part travel narrative, part social history, part memoir, part food writing. All these parts come together to make a terrific book.

Sharon Hudgins and her husband Tom spent a year and a half in post-Soviet Siberia teaching business management for the University of Maryland's overseas program. As peripatetic ex-patriates, they were familiar with unfamiliarity. But they were still not prepared for what Siberia had to offer them.

Join Sharon and Tom as they picnic with the Russian Mafiya, try to teach in an educational system that discourages questions and independent thinking, and ponder why a herd of horses is tangled in downtown rush hour traffic.

In "Absurdistan" it is just one perplexing thing after another. The electricity and water in their poorly-constructed apartment building work only intermittently. But in spite of such challenges, they make friends and entertain regularly. Cultural differences mean that the same friends who swoon over delicacies such as wafer-thin horse liver slices rolled with layers of horse fat, are unable to enjoy a Hudgins Tex-Mex feast.

Hudgins's previous work as a food and travel writer are evident here, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she writes fiction as well. The narrative is effortless and the stories she tells are by turns engaging and frightening.

In The Other Side Of Russia, author Sharon Hudgins takes the reader along on her Trains-Siberian Railroad adventure through Siberia and the Russian Far East, an area that was closed off to Westerners (and most Russians) prior to 1990s and the collapse of the old Soviet Union. Here the reader will be treated to a unique travelogue that will take them from the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, to feast with native Siberian Buryats, the food markets and "high-rise villages" of Vladivostok and Irkutsk, Christmas celebrations, New Year's banquets, Easter dinners, and Siberian festivals. The Other Side Of Russia dispels the myths and misconceptions about the Asian part of Russia which extends across eight time zones between the Ural Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Offering a window of observation into this land of harsh winters, vast uninhabited spaces, friendly people, strange cuisines, and thriving modern cities, The Other Side Of Russia is a welcome, informative, and highly entertaining read which is especially commended to the attention of armchair travelers and students of Russian culture and history.

The Other Side of Russia emerged from Barbara Hudgins experience of living in Siberia for a year and a half, from 1993 to 1994. Working as the onsite program coordinator for the University of Maryland University College in Siberia and the Russian Far East, she worked and lived in Vladivostok and Irkutsk.

Hudgins book is the first book about Siberia I'd come across written by someone who spent extensive time in Siberia. This gives her a depth of understanding that adds a lot to her memoir.

The structure of her memoir is unusual. She's divided the book into two sections. The chapters in part one focus on place - Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Lake Baikal, etc. - and the chapters in the second part focus on aspects of life and culture in Siberia - housing, education, food and festivals. Hudgins supplemented her first-hand experience with extensive research. This offers readers an in-depth source of information about many aspects of Siberian place and life.

What's lost in this non-chronological format is Hudgin's own adaptations and reactions over her time in Siberia. She does insert some feelings and personality, but the focus is on the topic, rather than on her personal experience or characters who change and develop over the period.

Hudgins seems to have thrown herself into Siberia with a remarkably open mind. She expertly captures the small details of Siberian life and renders vivid pictures of feasts shared with Russian friends. For those who have been to Siberia, this book will take you back there. For those planning on going, The Other Side of Russia provides a great overview of the life and culture.

In THE OTHER SIDE OF RUSSIA, the University of Maryland University College has established a joint undergraduate degree program in business management with the Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok and the State University in Irkutsk. In the summer of 1993, author Sharon Hudgins and her husband, Tom, packed off to Siberia and the Russian Far East to serve as teachers in this cooperative venture, while the former was also Maryland's on-site program coordinator in both cities. This book chronicles their experiences from their arrival until their departure in December 1994.

Whether she's describing the immensity of pristine Lake Baikal, the problematic living conditions in their high-rise apartment, local customs and food of the Buryat people, the vagaries and perils of shopping for household necessities, maddening water and electricity outages, local festivals, the growing pains of a free-market economy, the university students' learning ethic, or the conviviality and generosity of their Russian friends, Hudgins has a keen eye for small details, as when describing an open air market:

"An Uzbek woman ... sold raisins and nuts in small paper cones made out of official forms from the Irkutsk Municipal Water Department ... In one part of the market, a pretty teenage girl, wearing a garish, flower-printed dress and a thousand-yard stare, held a handful of peacock feathers and sipped a can of Dr Pepper, while in another section two older women, both drunk, tried to punch each other out in a fist fight."

I haven't been so engaged by a travel essay about Russia since Hedrick Smith's 1976 bestseller, THE RUSSIANS. My only criticism is the relative lack of photographs - only a couple at most per chapter. Luckily, Sharon's poetic prose paints pictures almost as effective as snapshots, as this from her vantage point on the Trans-Siberian Railroad:

"A profusion of wildflowers carpeted the meadows, like an Impressionist painting exuberantly expanding beyond the limits of canvas and frame: undulating shades of yellow, gold, and blue, maroon and magenta, soft pink and pristine white, the pale purple globes of wild onions gone to seed, thousands of red-orange tiger lilies, whole fields of dark purple Siberian irises, and occasionally a single red poppy or two, like a stubborn symbol of politics past. Outside Chita a small lake glistened under the midnight moon."

For me, a travel narrative is all it can be if it makes me want to go there myself. THE OTHER SIDE OF RUSSIA accomplishes that. Well, maybe for just a brief visit, perhaps, because I certainly wouldn't want to live there.

Book was very easy reading and well organized. One of the best history books I have read.

if you want to no about the early to last romanov's and russia history this book is for you.this writer leave nothing out.

Mr. Lincolm, unlike Robert Massie who wrote "Peter the Great," left me with the clear impression that he understood the source material he had at hand, and was able to verify through corroboration every thing he said. Some of the more incredible stories, or speculative rumors are left out. This does not make his work any less enjoyable, but it does lend Mr. Lincoln's work a feeling of solid thoroughness in its research--something that is lacking in Massie's book. If a story was left out, I felt quite confident that Mr. Lincoln knew of the story, but could not corroborate it to his satisfaction.

This book is very thorough and incredible in its vast sweep. But it is broken apart into major periods. Each period is further broken down into topics, such as political history, economic history, social history, and so on. This format makes the book quite useful as a reference as well as enjoyable to read. This is the best book on the story of the Romanov family in the English language to date. And I can see this book firmly establishing itself as a timeless classic, alongside Shelby Foote's "Civil War," or Gibbons, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

W. Bruce Lincoln's history of the 300 years of Romanov rule in Russia (1613-1917) is easily his most readable account of Russian history. While Professor Lincoln's research is meticulous as ever, in this volume he has to cover far more ground than in his other more focused histories and thus he avoids some of the digressions that he normally might allow himself. The result is a superb one-volume history of the Tsars and Tsarinas who determined Russia's development from a minor principality into the largest empire on earth.

The Romanovs consists of four parts: Muscovite beginnings (1613-1689), the Rise of an Empire (1689-1796), Empire Triumphant (1796-1894) and the Last Emperor (1894-1917). The first three parts each consist of several chapters, with the first covering biographical details of the Tsars and Tsarinas in that period, followed by chapters on political and cultural changes in that period. There are only two significant problems with what is otherwise a superb presentation: a non-chronological methodology and a lack of a single supporting map of Romanov domains (there are two maps of St Petersburg's layout). In the first case, Lincoln tends to keep coming back to Tsars in subsequent chapters on culture, politics, etc which is very confusing. Indeed, he seems in a rush to plow through the biographies of the Tsars, then revisit their cultural accomplishments, then come back again and discuss their political accomplishments, and then maybe discuss a few scandals or wars. As for the lack of maps, it makes it extremely difficult for the reader to evaluate the territorial expansions of the various Romanov rulers or Russia's growth over three centuries.

Despite these two flaws, the Romanovs is a delightful read for anyone with a scholarly interest in Russian imperial history. Perhaps the three most significant rulers that Lincoln assesses are Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas II. Most histories tend to elevate Peter to hero status, but Lincoln's evaluation is more mixed. While Peter gets great credit for pushing Russia to modernize, the costs he incurred may have been too great. In particular, Lincoln questions Peter's obsession with building his capital on totally unsuitable terrain; the fact that the Russians were able to eventually succeed in constructing Peter's dream capital often disguises the fact that the human and financial losses were exorbitantly wasteful. The reader will be left to ponder the question that if Peter had built his capital elsewhere, Russia's development might have been much less painful. As for Catherine, Lincoln prefers to minimize the scandal and corruption associated with her court and view this as the golden age of Russian cultural development. Finally, Nicholas II appears as even more of a fatalistic dolt bent on self-destruction than he did in Lincoln's previous books. In sum, The Romanovs provides a solid and very readable account of Russia's development under the Tsars and Tsarinas.

A genuinely great book. Lincoln certainly could write, and make
all those old Russians seem really interesting. As Lincoln's
former students (including me) know, his lectures were tediously
boring, so that makes the books all the more remarkable.