Caught in the Revolution

Author: Helen Rappaport
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473518172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 547

Book Description
SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH AND EVENING STANDARD '[The] centenary will prompt a raft of books on the Russian Revolution. They will be hard pushed to better this highly original, exhaustively researched and superbly constructed account.' Saul David, Daily Telegraph 'A gripping, vivid, deeply researched chronicle of the Russian Revolution told through the eyes of a surprising, flamboyant cast of foreigners in Petrograd, superbly narrated by Helen Rappaport.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil. Foreign visitors who filled hotels, bars and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps. Among them were journalists, diplomats, businessmen, governesses and volunteer nurses. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable Women’s Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareava. Drawing upon a rich trove of material and through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold, Helen Rappaport takes us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened.

Former People

Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466827750
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 763

Book Description
Epic in scope, precise in detail, and heart-breaking in its human drama, Former People is the first book to recount the history of the aristocracy caught up in the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of Stalin's Russia. Filled with chilling tales of looted palaces and burning estates, of desperate flights in the night from marauding peasants and Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile, and execution, it is the story of how a centuries'-old elite, famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar and Empire, and its promotion of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the rest of old Russia. Yet Former People is also a story of survival and accommodation, of how many of the tsarist ruling class—so-called "former people" and "class enemies"—overcame the psychological wounds inflicted by the loss of their world and decades of repression as they struggled to find a place for themselves and their families in the new, hostile order of the Soviet Union. Chronicling the fate of two great aristocratic families—the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns—it reveals how even in the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on. Told with sensitivity and nuance by acclaimed historian Douglas Smith, Former People is the dramatic portrait of two of Russia's most powerful aristocratic families, and a sweeping account of their homeland in violent transition.

Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution

Author: Tsuyoshi Hasegawa
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674972066
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Book Description
Introduction -- Prelude to revolution -- Rising crime before the October revolution -- Why did the crime rate shoot up? -- Militias rise and fall -- An epidemic of mob justice -- Crime after the Bolshevik takeover -- The Bolsheviks and the militia -- Conclusion

Just Jane

Author: William Lavender
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0544341651
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Book Description
A young English Lady discovers love, independence, and the true meaning of home in this YA historical romance set during the Revolutionary War. South Carolina, 1776. The orphaned daughter of an English earl, fourteen-year-old Lady Jane Prentice has just arrived in Charlestown to find herself in the middle of heated conflicts both personal and political. While war rages between her former country and her new home, another is being waged between the members of her own family, whose loyalties are strongly divided in America's fight for freedom. Torn by family feuds, the war, a secret romance, and her own growing need to forge her own path, Jane struggles for the courage to become the person she wants to be. Just Jane is an inspiring historical tale of a girl and a nation, each learning to fight for independence. Includes a reader's guide.

The Race to Save the Romanovs

Author: Helen Rappaport
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250151236
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Book Description
In this international bestseller investigating the murder of the Russian Imperial Family, Helen Rappaport embarks on a quest to uncover the various plots and plans to save them, why they failed, and who was responsible. The murder of the Romanov family in July 1918 horrified the world, and its aftershocks still reverberate today. In Putin's autocratic Russia, the Revolution itself is considered a crime, and its anniversary was largely ignored. In stark contrast, the centenary of the massacre of the Imperial Family was commemorated in 2018 by a huge ceremony attended by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. While the murders themselves have received major attention, what has never been investigated in detail are the various plots and plans behind the scenes to save the family—on the part of their royal relatives, other governments, and Russian monarchists loyal to the Tsar. Rappaport refutes the claim that the fault lies entirely with King George V, as has been the traditional view for the last century. The responsibility for failing the Romanovs must be equally shared. The question of asylum for the Tsar and his family was an extremely complicated issue that presented enormous political, logistical and geographical challenges at a time when Europe was still at war. Like a modern day detective, Helen Rappaport draws on new and never-before-seen sources from archives in the US, Russia, Spain and the UK, creating a powerful account of near misses and close calls with a heartbreaking conclusion. With its up-to-the-minute research, The Race to Save the Romanovs is sure to replace outdated classics as the final word on the fate of the Romanovs.

Russia in Revolution

Author: Stephen Anthony Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198734824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Book Description
The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s, when Stalin simultaneously unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture and crash industrialization upon Russian society. Drawing on recent archivally-based scholarship, Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on the various groups that made up society: peasants, workers, non-Russian nationalities, the army, women and the family, young people, and the Church. In doing so, it provides a fresh way into the big, perennial questions about the Revolution and its consequences: why did the attempt by the tsarist government to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution fail?; why did the First World War bring about the collapse of the tsarist system?; why did the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 not get off the ground?; why did the Bolsheviks succeed in seizing and holding on to power?; why did they come out victorious from a punishing civil war?; why did the New Economic Policy they introduced in 1921 fail?; and why did Stalin come out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924? A final chapter then reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century - and, for all its terrible flaws, what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today.

Revolution in Russia

Author: Edith Rogovin Frankel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521405850
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 460

Book Description
The Russian Revolution of 1917 continues to be a subject of most intense controversy. Eighteen leading specialists from different generations, countries and schools of thought, accordingly re-examine the key issues and events of that crucial year.

Lenin on the Train

Author: Catherine Merridale
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1627793011
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 385

Book Description
"A gripping, meticulously researched account of Lenin's fateful rail journey from Zurich to Petrograd, where he ignited the Russian Revolution and forever changed the world. In April 1917, as the Russian Tsar Nicholas II's abdication sent shockwaves across war-torn Europe, the future leader of the Bolshevik revolution Vladimir Lenin was far away, exiled in Zurich. When the news reached him, Lenin immediately resolved to return to Petrograd and lead the revolt. But to get there, he would have to cross Germany, which meant accepting help from the deadliest of Russia's adversaries. Germany saw an opportunity to further destabilize Russia by allowing Lenin and his small group of revolutionaries to return. Now, drawing on a dazzling array of sources and never-before-seen archival material, renowned historian Catherine Merridale provides a riveting, nuanced account of this enormously consequential journey--the train ride that changed the world--as well as the underground conspiracy and subterfuge that went into making it happen. Writing with the same insight and formidable intelligence that distinguished her earlier works, she brings to life a world of counter-espionage and intrigue, wartime desperation, illicit finance, and misguided utopianism. This was the moment when the Russian Revolution became Soviet, the genesis of a system of tyranny and faith that changed the course of Russia's history forever and transformed the international political climate"--

October

Author: China Miéville
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784782785
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
Multi-award-winning author China Miéville captures the drama of the Russian Revolution in this “engaging retelling of the events that rocked the foundations of the twentieth century” (Village Voice) In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world’s first workers’ state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St. Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilization that still resonates loudly today.

The Russian Revolution 1917

Author: Nikolai Nikolaevich Sukhanov
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400857104
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 745

Book Description
Author of the only full-length eyewitness account of the 1917 Revolution, Sukhanov was a key figure in the first revolutionary Government. His seven-volume book, first published in 1922, was suppressed under Stalin. This reissue of the abridged version is, as the editor's preface points out, one of the few things written about this most dramatic and momentous event, which actually has the smell of life, and gives us a feeling for the personalities, the emotions, and the play of ideas of the whole revolutionary period." Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.