Natasha's Dance

Natasha's Dance PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1466862890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
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.

Natasha's Dance

Natasha's Dance PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1466862890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
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.

The Whisperers

The Whisperers PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014180887X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1000

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Book Description
Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.

Just Send Me Word

Just Send Me Word PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141971401
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
From Orlando Figes, international bestselling author of A People's Tragedy, Just Send Me Word is the moving true story of two young Russians whose love survived Stalin's Gulag. Lev and Svetlana, kept apart for fourteen years by the Second World War and the Gulag, stayed true to each other and exchanged thousands of secret letters as Lev battled to survive in Stalin's camps. Using this remarkable cache of smuggled correspondence, Orlando Figes tells the tale of two incredible people who, swept along in the very worst of times, kept their devotion alive. Orlando Figes was granted exclusive access to the thousands of letters between Lev and Sveta that form the foundation of Just Send Me Word, and he was able to interview the couple in person, then in their nineties. These real-time and largely uncensored letters form the largest cache of Gulag letters ever found. Reviews: 'One is overcome with admiration for the kindness, bravery and generosity of people in terrible peril ... It is impossible to read without shedding tears' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Financial Times 'This powerful narrative by a distinguished historian will take its place not just in history but in literature' Robert Massie 'Electrifying, passionate, devoted, despairing, exhilarating ... a tale of hope, resilience, grit and love' The Times 'Moving ... a remarkable discovery' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'The gulag story lacks individuals for us to sympathise with: a Primo Levi, an Anne Frank or even an Oskar Schindler. Just Send Me Word may well be the book to change that' Oliver Bullough, Independent 'Immensely touching ... [a] heartening gem of a book' Anna Reid, Literary Review 'The remarkable true story of a love affair between two Soviet citizens ... as much a literary challenge as a historical one: the book can be read as a non-fiction novel' Telegraph 'Remarkable ... Figes, selecting and then interpreting this mass of letters, makes them tell two kinds of story. The first is a uniquely detailed narrative of the gulag, of the callous, slatternly universe which consumed millions of lives ... The second is about two people determined not to lose each other' Neal Ascherson, Guardian 'A quiet, moving and memorable account of life in a totalitarian state ... The book often reads like a novel ... captivating' Evening Standard 'Orlando Figes has wrought something beautiful from dark times' Ian Thomson, Observer 'A heart-rending record of extraordinary human endurance' Kirkus Reviews '[A] remarkable tale of love and devotion during the worst years of the USSR ... [Figes's] fine narrative pacing enhances this moving, memorable story' Publishers Weekly About the author: Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is the author of Peasant Russia, Civil War, A People's Tragedy, Natasha's Dance, The Whisperers and Crimea. He lives in Cambridge and London. His books have been translated into over twenty languages.

The Europeans

The Europeans PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1627792155
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 688

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Book Description
From the “master of historical narrative” (Financial Times), a dazzling, richly detailed, panoramic work—the first to document the genesis of a continent-wide European culture. The nineteenth century in Europe was a time of unprecedented artistic achievement. It was also the first age of cultural globalization—an epoch when mass communications and high-speed rail travel brought Europe together, overcoming the barriers of nationalism and facilitating the development of a truly European canon of artistic, musical, and literary works. By 1900, the same books were being read across the continent, the same paintings reproduced, the same music played in homes and heard in concert halls, the same operas performed in all the major theatres. Drawing from a wealth of documents, letters, and other archival materials, acclaimed historian Orlando Figes examines the interplay of money and art that made this unification possible. At the center of the book is a poignant love triangle: the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev; the Spanish prima donna Pauline Viardot, with whom Turgenev had a long and intimate relationship; and her husband Louis Viardot, an art critic, theater manager, and republican activist. Together, Turgenev and the Viardots acted as a kind of European cultural exchange—they either knew or crossed paths with Delacroix, Berlioz, Chopin, Brahms, Liszt, the Schumanns, Hugo, Flaubert, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky, among many other towering figures. As Figes observes, nearly all of civilization’s great advances have come during periods of heightened cosmopolitanism—when people, ideas, and artistic creations circulate freely between nations. Vivid and insightful, The Europeans shows how such cosmopolitan ferment shaped artistic traditions that came to dominate world culture.

Natasha's Not My Name

Natasha's Not My Name PDF Author: Isabella Grosso
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781948598378
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Natasha's Not My Name introduces readers to the complex underground of the strip club industry from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old. Groomed by her cousin, supported by older dancers, and paid by strangers for lap dances, the memoir follows Isabella Grosso's adolescence and young adult years as she struggles, succeeds, and ultimately survives as a child-turned-adult with a double life. ?Natasha's Not My Name dives deep into the dark pockets of sexual abuse, suicide, drug use, exploitation, and the inner strength it takes for a wounded child to grow up to be a strong woman, and what ultimately saves her: a love for dance and the arts, and a desire to share her story to help girls in equally vulnerable situations.?Introspective, unapologetic, and brave, Natasha's Not My Name is inspirational reading for all women.

The Great Comet

The Great Comet PDF Author: Dave Malloy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781454923282
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A behind-the-scenes look at the making of an award-winning musical! Here is the official, fascinating, behind-the scenes journey of the new musical Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, from its inception, to Off-Off Broadway, to Off-Broadway, to its premiere at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway. The musical is based on a dramatic 70-page slice of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Profusely illustrated, the book also includes an annotated script and a special CD with three songs from the Off-Broadway production and two all-new recordings for the Broadway production featuring Josh Groban with a 25-piece orchestra.

Peasant Russia, Civil War

Peasant Russia, Civil War PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9781842124215
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
From the preface Many historians outside the Soviet Union have sought to explain why the Bolsheviks won the civil war. Some have focused on the military history of 1918-20. Others have connected the victory of the Red Army to the growth of the Soviet State. But none has made a detailed study of the relationship between the Bolsheviks and the peasantry, the overwhelming majority of the Russian population, during the formative years of the Soviet regime. None has seriously investigated the ways in which the Bolshevik victory was made possible by the transformation of the Russian countryside in the years leading up to and during the revolution. That is the purpose of this book.

Right to Dance

Right to Dance PDF Author: Naomi M. Jackson
Publisher: Banff, AB : Banff Centre Press
ISBN: 9781894773102
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In terms of human rights organizations, there appears to be intimate connections between dance and human rights issues. Such connections appear most frequently in the context of dance being used as a tool for inciting people to violence, as a means of humiliation and as a means of uniting communities in times of hardship. Dance is often employed as a nationalistic propaganda tool, as a means of healing individuals and groups after traumatic events and as a powerful form of theatrical expression and education by artists/choreographers who have undergone or witnessed gross violations of human rights.

A People's Tragedy

A People's Tragedy PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher: Bodley Head Childrens
ISBN: 9781847922915
Category : Russia
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Vast in scope, based on exhaustive original research, and written with passion, narrative skill and human sympathy, this book offers an account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation.

Between Religion and Rationality

Between Religion and Rationality PDF Author: Joseph Frank
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400836530
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
Essays from the award-winning Dostoevsky biographer In this book, acclaimed Dostoevsky biographer Joseph Frank explores some of the most important aspects of nineteenth and twentieth century Russian culture, literature, and history. Delving into the distinctions of the Russian novel as well as the conflicts between the religious peasant world and the educated Russian elite, Between Religion and Rationality displays the cogent reflections of one of the most distinguished and versatile critics in the field. Frank's essays provide a discriminating look at four of Dostoevsky's most famous novels, discuss the debate between J. M. Coetzee and Mario Vargas Llosa on the issue of Dostoevsky and evil, and confront Dostoevsky's anti-Semitism. The collection also examines such topics as Orlando Figes's sweeping survey of the history of Russian culture, the life of Pushkin, and Oblomov's influence on Samuel Beckett. Investigating the omnipresent religious theme that runs throughout Russian culture, even in the antireligious Chekhov, Frank argues that no other major European literature was as much preoccupied as the Russian with the tensions between religion and rationality. Between Religion and Rationality highlights this unique quality of Russian literature and culture, offering insights for general readers and experts alike.