Hi guys,
Summer is here and this is the high season for reading for many of us. For me it is no different although I’ve been quite modest with the amount of reads I aspire to read this summer. I’ve learned from summers past that if too many books ends up in my ‘unreviewed’ pile then it’ll take me forever to get it done. So this is me trying to be proactive and prevent this from happening by using the cloudy weather of today to get some reviewing done about this awesome book I finished just last night! I bought the whole trilogy as a graduation present for myself when I had completed my MSc in 2021 so me is very happy with my gift to me haha. The synopsis is borrowed from Goodreads:
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Winter, 1916: In St Petersburg, Russia on the brink of revolution. Outside the Smolny Institute for Noble Young Ladies, an English governess is waiting for her young charge to be released from school. But so are the Tsar’s secret police… Beautiful and headstrong, Sashenka Zeitlin is just sixteen. As her mother parties with Rasputin and her dissolute friends, Sashenka slips into the frozen night to play her part in a dangerous game of conspiracy and seduction. Twenty years on, Sashenka has a powerful husband with whom she has two children. Around her people are disappearing, but her own family is safe. But she's about to embark on a forbidden love affair which will have devastating consequences. Sashenka's story lies hidden for half a century, until a young historian goes deep into Stalin's private archives and uncovers a heart-breaking tale of passion and betrayal, savage cruelty and unexpected heroism - and one woman forced to make an unbearable choice.
This is definitely my type of historical fiction! The story is divided into three, 1916, 1939, and 1994, so we’re really hitting some of the big historical periods in the last century here. I was immediately pulled into the world within these pages until the very last one at 644, and my inner history geek was really enjoying herself. There is just something about the grandeur of Europe in the early 20th century and when described as well this, one cannot do anything but enjoying it! Personally, I’m very unfamiliar with Russian history. I’m aware of and I’ve learned about the revolution in 1917, the battle of Stalingrad, and the Romanov era, more than one might expect since I’ve read Fiore’s book on the topic, but other than this I’m sadly unfamiliar with this big country and its history. Reading this book, although mainly a work of fiction, taught me a great deal and it has also been a while since I’ve had to look up so many words as I had to during this read. For me, this is enriching because it means that my language is evolving. Some of the words my husband knew so he could define them, and others I had to look up.
When I read this book I got an odd sense that it is somewhat comparable to our world today although it is a work of fiction. Today we have a world where many voices are screaming to get heard and some people listen to these voices and take them seriously whilst others ignore them and keep trotting on with their lives. In the 1916 section of the book you see many of the same things happening. The balance of power is unequal within society and due to domestic politics and the geopolitical sphere in Europe many people suffer whilst others profit immensely. The revolution is on the move and Russia is at the outbreak of civil war. Today, we have the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the war in Ukraine, and other atrocities going on where people have a lot of the same voices as in 1916. What struck me as especially comparable was the difficulty in understanding which information was real and what was fake. As presented in the 1916 period, and also to some extent the 1939 period, of the book we see that much information is passed around, some of these are traps, some are real, people are being followed, alliances change, and people conceal their real viewpoints. It’s just generally very difficult for people who were involved in corruption, underground activities, revolutionary work, and daily tasks to know who to trust and what to believe. I feel like a lot of this is going on today as well but on a bigger scale and more through the media than anything else. The credibility of sources used in media today appears to have taken a nosedive burying the real information in a lot of gibberish making it difficult for the real voices to be heard and taken seriously…
I truly enjoyed the character gallery in this book. You have familiar historical figures such as Rasputin, Stalin, Lenin, Molotov, and other famous or semi-famous Communists but the characters we as readers most closely interact with are rich both in descriptions and personality traits. Our main character, Sashenka, is to me both peculiar and relatable. Her world is very foreign to mine, both because of the time period but also her viewpoints. At the same time, looking at the world through her eyes in the beginning I was able to understand why people were fascinated about Communism and its prospects. It sounds like a very fair world yet the world isn’t fair and as we know from our history books a lot was going on behind closed doors in the Kremlin. She’s relatable because she wants to do things herself, she wants to succeed in life, and she wants, at a later point, to live life to the fullest. Without spoiling too much I can also say that she’s invested in friendships and she has a good understanding of the people she surrounds herself with, even in desperate times. I loved the fact that I did not understand the full depth of Sashenka as a character until the very end of the book. During the book, I did have more than one moment where there were tears in my eyes simply because a solution presented itself that I did not forsee and I loved each time this happened!
This is a book to read for both pleasure and learning. It gave me Ken Follett vibes very early on and for me, that is the highest praise I can give a historical fiction author. So if Follett has England covered for historical fiction I’d say Montefiore has Russia covered. The character gallery is reach and their developments are intriguing. The descriptions of their surroundings, as well as the historical time periods, have required a lot of research I’m sure and it truly shows throughout the book. I’m looking very much forward to the next part in this trilogy!
Published: 2008
Genre: Historical fiction
Theme: Russia, family, friendship, history
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