Waiting for dawn
Tibor Szamuely sounded like a pessimist, and with good reason. Years after his release from the Gulag, he wrote a compelling book, The Russian Tradition, whose central argument is that … Continue reading
Penelope Fitzgerald’s Russia: past, patience, future
Penelope Fitzgerald’s historical novels are famous for their authenticity. In The Beginning of Spring (1988), set in Moscow in 1913, she describes rooms, trams, factories, shop signs and streets until … Continue reading
The World Cup, a month on
Only a month on, what can a historian add? First of all the usual pleasantries. My household was completely hooked. It was a spectacularly successful event, generating excitement and enthusiasm, … Continue reading
James Bond’s Russia question
James Bond is faced with a unique Russia question in Ian Fleming’s fifth 007 novel, From Russia With Love, published in 1957. Does Tatyana Romanova really want to defect from … Continue reading
The analogy misleader
You don’t have to watch US cable news for very long before somebody asks about history and Trump. Can you find a comparison? A precedent? Or is Donald Trump so … Continue reading
A Bolshevik Christmas
Today is Russian Christmas, dated according to the calendar of the Orthodox Church. Now it’s a popular festival, but for seventy-four years, under the guise of the Soviet Union, Russia … Continue reading
Most enjoyable Russia book of the year?
Many fine books have been published on Russia this year. But one of them kept me turning the pages more quickly than the others, and not from a dutiful need … Continue reading
