For McMeekin, far from being a class struggle ‘borne along irresistibly by the Marxist dialectic, the events of 1917 were filled with might-have-beens and missed chances’. The Blackguard (novel) Blood Red, Snow White; Bro (novel) C. Coup de Grâce (novel) D. Thanks, Jordan, and glad to see you're interested in the period also! Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. I'll have to check out The Snow Mountain in particular, as I've been enjoying novels that focus on Nicholas and Alexandra's children and show what their personalities were like. The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of the Russian Revolution (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1988), Rethinking the Russian Revolution (Edward Arnold, London, 1990), ‘Epilogue’ in Robert Service (ed.) These are my favorite historical fiction books about the Romanovs. Yes, same author (though I haven’t read I am England). Following are a dozen works of historical fiction set during the period, both new/upcoming and older. Whittling all historical fiction books into one manageable list is impossible, truly. This dream was the backdrop to my novel Fear of Mirrors, which I began writing soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall (and has been recently republished by Verso). I'd be curious if you had any specific novel in mind.The Lawhon novel has an interesting structure that takes some getting used to.Thanks for commenting! The Russian Revolution, as seen through 12 historical novels. I really enjoyed The Romanov Empress and I Was Anastasia! 30+ [Hand Picked] Popular Books On Russian Revolution Discover the list of some best books written on Russian Revolution by popular award winning authors. He writes about Russian history and is very easy to read. This year (tomorrow, to be exact) marks a century since the execution of Russia's tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in 1918, following the Russian Revolution. Some, like Pushkin and Tolstoy, participated in the French invasion of Russia during the War of 1812.Others experienced the 1905 Russian Revolution in which worker, peasant strikes and military mutinies were directed at the government. reflects the time it was written and is somewhat outdated with respect to the genre’s perception by the media and […] Through the Russian Revolution by Albert Rhys Williams Williams was already in Petrograd when Reed arrived and acted as a calming tutor to his wilder and more activist colleague. A century after the Bolsheviks captured the Winter Palace, we round up the most illuminating new releases tackling the October Revolution, its … 7. The Commissar was Anatole Lunacharsky, whose self-description as “a Bolshevik among intellectuals and an intellectual among Bolsheviks” was slightly exaggerated, given that the central committee was dominated by intellectuals: Lenin, Bukharin and Trotsky to name a few. And yes, A Gentleman in Moscow would be a great addition. 8. 10. Scratch Heart of the Storm from the list, though. It was really satisfying to write a novel where the Imperial family lives, and Lenin and Stalin are killed off instead! In the past I read most of Catherine Gavin books. Read. Hidden underneath the chaos and misery created by the horrendous civil war between the Red and White armies, (the latter backed by Britain, the US, France and their allies) there was the thread of reason. 2. Top 100 Paid Top 100 Free #1. No counter-revolutionary, conservative or liberal, has been able to compete with this telling. He was working on Year Two when he was permitted to leave Stalin’s Russia in 1936. $1.99 #2. The Russian Revolution Historical Context. The three linked books are: A Space of the Heart, Journey into Fire, and Heart of the Storm. St. Petersburg, New Year's Eve, 1916. I found them very much worth tracking down. Russian Revolution in Worldwar. Of the four works I consider indispensable, two were written by Russians and two by North Americans. I'll have to look for some of these. How Lenin’s love of literature shaped the Russian Revolution. October 1917 had been relegated to a past that would never be repeated, just like the tumbrils in Paris in 1793 or Charles I’s public execution outside the palace at Westminster. Along with the French Revolution in 1789, the Russian Revolution has become one of the most studied, analysed and interpreted of all revolutions. Another book I thought was a good page turner was Constance Heaven’s The Raging Fire. Ten Days That Shook the World by John ReedA buccaneering east-coast American radical despatched to cover the revolution is hypnotised by it and his reports combined to make a book that had a huge impact in the US and beyond. A thoughtful comment - I think novels by necessity have to simplify the period to some degree, since their focus is narrow, and novelists always have to choose what to leave in versus take out. I really enjoyed "The Passion of Marie Romanov" for that reason. While saddened that his Soviet colleagues were barred, he produced what is a historical masterpiece on the predecessors of the Bolsheviks. History of the Russian Revolution by Leon TrotskyThis passionate, partisan and beautifully written account by a major participant in the revolution, written during his exile on the isle of Prinkipo in Turkey, remains one of the best accounts of 1917. Its effects are still well felt in the world today, with Russia having never fully shed the effects eighty years of Communist Party rule and the … This book takes the Russian Revolution and gives it a fantasy twist by incorporating a Faberge egg with magical powers. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. My top ten picks are…. That's one I've been meaning to read. Tauris Short Histories series the reader gets, in the space of 232 pages, or just over 200 if you exclude footnotes, bibliography and index, not only a punchy summary of Swain’s long research in the field but a distillation of scholarly debate on the Russian Revolution. Buy Russian Revolution books from Waterstones.com today. I think The Romanov Bride was my favorite of his three -- almost nobody else has written about Grand Duchess Elisabeth. The Commissariat of Enlightenment by Sheila FitzpatrickA riveting account of the institution that implemented the cultural and educational policies of the revolution after 1917. Two older titles - STRANGE ARE THE WAYS by Teresa Crane, and EMILY, PT. Through the Russian Revolution by Albert Rhys WilliamsWilliams was already in Petrograd when Reed arrived and acted as a calming tutor to his wilder and more activist colleague. The Russian Revolution is often depicted as a revolution of the people – but to what extent was this true? This is a great list! 4.5 out of 5 stars 1,518. Family sagas are my favorite. Pages in category "Novels set in the Russian Revolution" The following 16 pages are in this category, out of 16 total. His self-deprecatory account of the February outbreak conveys his style of writing: Tuesday, 21 Feb 1917. “A Bolshevik who does not dream is a bad Bolshevik,” he would often repeat. I love Romanov history! Thanks! A guide to over 2,700 historical novels, 2004-present, plus info on the latest trends. This was a complex time, where there wasn't just 2 sides and describing it as clusterfuck is a serious understatement. Anna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club): (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Leo Tolstoy. Nevertheless, the film sparked a fascination in me for reading more about The Romanovs and modern Russian history. In 1942, when Soviet Foreign Commissar Vyacheslav Molotov met with Atvar, the Fleetlord of the Race 's Conquest Fleet, aboard the 127th Emperor Hetto, he horrified the Race by explaining the Russian Revolution to Atvar. Become a member to get exclusive early access to our latest reviews too! His own dream was a state modelled on the defeated Paris Commune of 1871. From Catherine to Peter the Great to Tsar Nicholas to Vladimir Putin, these Russian historical fiction books by master storytellers will keep you reading long into the night. I really don't understand why would you want to learn of Russian Revolution and Civil War from a fiction book. is Russian historical fiction a “thing” now? Sarah Johnson Eastern Illinois University [This speech formed part of a panel discussion on historical fiction at the Associated Writing Programs annual conference in March 2002. Often compared to War and Peace, this epic historical novel traces the fate of a typical Cossack family over a tumultuous ten-year period, from just before the beginning of World War I to the bloody civil war following the Russian Revolution of 1917. The Bronze Horseman book. Russian Revolution historians These pages contain some profiles of prominent Russian Revolution historians. Thanks - is she the same Patricia Wright who wrote I Am England? He tells us what Solzhenitsyn imagined Lenin was like, and about the children’s author who led a double life as a spy in Bolshevik Russia. Russian peasants, striking workers, and soldiers, equally exhausted from the privations caused by World War I, take to the streets in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) to protest their living conditions.Over the following week the protests grow, and more than a thousand people are killed in clashes with the police and government troops. What I wanted to do in The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution was to place Lenin in proper historical context as an extremely gifted political strategist and thinker who, more than any other historical figure, dominated the shape of the last century. I'll have to check - I hadn't come across her Russia-set novels before. Here's the first in a series of previews of upcoming 2021 releases. Over the last 20 years The Historical Novels Review (the society’s print magazine for our members) has published reviews of some 18,000 historical fiction books. https://www.bl.uk/russian-revolution/articles/timeline-of-the-russian-revolution Photo above of Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland, taken by, Comments or questions? This year (tomorrow, to be exact) marks a century since the execution of Russia's tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in 1918, following the Russian Revolution. Please note that this document (like historical novels themselves!) October 1917 had been relegated to a past that would never be repeated, just like, The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution, backed by Britain, the US, France and their allies, and has been recently republished by Verso, History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky, his exile on the isle of Prinkipo in Turkey, Russian Revolution 1917: A Personal Record by NN Sukhanov, Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed, Through the Russian Revolution by Albert Rhys Williams, Year One of the Russian Revolution by Victor Serge, The Commissariat of Enlightenment by Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman by Alexandra Kollontai, Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in 19th-, Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia by Dominic Lieven, The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution/April Theses by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, It is available from the Guardian bookshop, priced £14.44 including free UK p&p. It’s another family saga that spans 1904-1918. Year One of the Russian Revolution by Victor SergeThis was Serge’s first non-literary work, composed in the late 1920s and, as he put it, “in detached fragments which could each be separately completed and sent abroad post-haste”. Thanks for this list! Perhaps outside your timeframe, but I would add A Gentleman in Moscow. In this volume in the I.B. Behind a partition two typists were gossiping about food difficulties, rows in shopping queues, unrest among the women, an attempt to smash into some warehouse. About 900 pages long, this book is an imposing first-hand account of the Russian Revolution, remarkable for having been composed by one of its chief protagonists—proof, if need be, that Leon Trotsky was a formidable writer (amongst other things). I've always been fascinated by the Romanovs in particular. ‘D’you know,’ one of these ladies suddenly declared. He is one of the few, if not the only, reliable eye witnesses who recorded Lenin’s arrival at the Finland station and then accompanied him to the Bolshevik headquarters an hour later. Decades later, Warren Beatty made it into a movie, Reds, in which the most electrifying sections were the appearances by witnesses who had known Reed. Malafrena: A Library of America eBook Classic Ursula K. Le Guin. In the decades that followed, the tragedies of the Revolution never completely left my mind, for October 1917 had been a formative event for my generation and its ghosts stalked the streets of Paris, Saigon and Prague in 1968. The earlier book is set during the 1850s and is interesting as background. A. August 1914 (novel) B. His book is in some ways a more solid work, helped by several conversations with Lenin and other Bolsheviks, as well as their opponents. Of course, I had a really good time writing my own Romanov novel, Triumph of a Tsar, which was published earlier this year. The movie begins in the late 1930s or early 1940s but, in flashback, most of the story takes place between 1912 and 1925, set against the backdrop of WWI (1914-1918), the Russian Revolution (1917), and the Russian Civil War (1917-1923). Find our best selection and offers online, with FREE Click & Collect or UK delivery. 1. It led to constitutional reform and a multi-party system. It was the success of this political approach with the mass of workers that shifted a majority of the urban electorate towards the Bolsheviks. Best Sellers in Historical Russian Fiction. From the mega-bestselling author of White Oleander and Paint It Black, a sweeping historical saga of the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of one young woman. I read all the reference books on the Anastasia pretenders, and found them confusing enough.Thanks for the link to the Lawhon novel in particularHelsGrand Duchess Anastasia Romanov, inArt and Architecture, mainly. Pub date 3/30/09. Read about corruption in Putin's Russia, true spy stories, drama of World War II, the Siege of Leningrad and Stalin's Reign of Terror. Detail from painting by Isaak Brodsky (1883-1939). I haven't heard of that one by Antonia Ridge, though I have a copy of her novel about Katherine de Valois. Kindle Edition. hundred years after the Russian Revolution, history, according to most historians, had pronounced its judgment. These book on topic Russian Revolution highly popular among the readers worldwide. A century after the Bolsheviks seized power for communism, Tariq Ali chooses some of the best books about an uprising that changed the world forever, Last modified on Thu 22 Feb 2018 14.21 GMT. Commissariat of Enlightenment by Sheila FitzpatrickA riveting account of the Bolsheviks two were written by and. 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