Name: natasha´s dance,a cultural history of russia
Price: 589.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock
Author: Orlando Figes
ISBN: 9780312421953

portada natasha´s dance,a cultural history of russia

natasha´s dance,a cultural history of russia

Type

Physical Book

Author

Orlando Figes

Publisher

Picador

Language

English

Pages

784

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

23.4 x 15.5 x 5.6 cm

Weight

0.91 kg.

ISBN

0312421958

ISBN13

9780312421953

Synopsis "natasha´s dance,a cultural history of russia"

History on a grand scale--an enchanting masterpiece that explores the making of one of the world's most vibrant civilizations A People's Tragedy, wrote Eric Hobsbawm, did "more to help us understand the Russian Revolution than any other book I know." Now, in Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Orlando Figes does the same for Russian culture, summoning the myriad elements that formed a nation and held it together. Beginning in the eighteenth century with the building of St. Petersburg--a "window on the West"--and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself--its character, spiritual essence, and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works--by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall--with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons, and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world. Figes's characters range high and low: the revered Tolstoy, who left his deathbed to search for the Kingdom of God, as well as the serf girl Praskovya, who became Russian opera's first superstar and shocked society by becoming her owner's wife. Like the European-schooled countess Natasha performing an impromptu folk dance in Tolstoy's War and Peace, the spirit of "Russianness" is revealed by Figes as rich and uplifting, complex and contradictory--a powerful force that unified a vast country and proved more lasting than any Russian ruler or state.

Orlando Figes

(Author)

View Author's Page

Orlando Figes (London, 1959) is a British historian, naturalized German in 2017, specialized in the history of Russia and Eastern Europe. He was educated at the University of Cambridge and was a professor at Trinity College and Birkbeck College of the University of London until his retirement in 2022. He is known for his narrative and accessible approach in works of cultural and political history, and has been a member of the Royal Society of Literature since 2003.

Among his most notable books are The Tragedy of a People: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 (1996), awarded the Wolfson Prize; Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (2002); The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia (2007); and The Story of Russia (2022). His works have been translated into more than thirty languages and have been recognized for their analytical depth and literary style.

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