Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-russian-revolution"

WHAT YOU DID NOT TELL: A RUSSIAN PAST AND THE JOURNEY HOME
Mark Mazower
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Other Press (October 17, 2017)
ISBN-10: 1590519078
ISBN-13: 978-159051907
https://www.amazon.com/Place-Origin-F...


Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton.

The man historian Mark Mazower is referring to in the title of his newest book is his grandfather—Mordecai “Max” Mazower. Mark traces the story of his grandfather and the rest of his family by digging into nearly every possible nook and cranny of available public and private archives as well as family documents and photographs of a man who lived an extraordinary if secretive life.

Major highlights of Max Mazower’s complex life include his time in Tsarist Russia as an agent of a revolutionary Jewish socialist movement, the Bund, once the most powerful and active socialist organization throughout Russia. While the Bund has largely been forgotten by history due to the rise and impact of the Bolsheviks, Max Mazower apparently maintained contact with his Bund comrades and supported the party in Poland long after the organization was absorbed by the Communist Party in Russia.

Mazower’s Bund activities twice resulted in exile to Siberia before he escaped to Poland in 1907, then Germany, and ultimately England. There, while mostly silent about his past, he became a very successful representative of the Yost typewriter company, focusing on sales to his former country which he visited frequently. While recounting his grandfather’s years between the European wars, the younger Mazower shares how his own investigations progressed, including the dead ends he bumped into. For example, he suspected grand-dad might have been a spy for the Bolsheviks, but found no evidence to support his theory.

Some chapters, at first glance, might seem largely digressions as with Mazower’s biographies of his illegitimate half-brother, Andre, and Andre’s mysterious mother, Sophia. Then again, the book is centered on the life and legacy of Max Mazower so all his family connections are explored as fully as the author could dig. Not surprisingly, the story of Max’s wife, Frouma, earns considerable attention including her first marriage, the death of her first husband, her relations with her second husband, and her life after his death. We also read the story of Ira, the daughter of Frouma’s first marriage. Like Mazower, Frouma came from a Russia of turbulent times and was essentially rescued from comparatively harsh circumstances to live in England, even if she didn’t know English.

Then, naturally enough, Mark Mazower recounts the upbringing of Bill, his father, and then his own childhood. What we see is a family that is part of the Russian Jewish diaspora and how these emigres fared in England. After the first part where we learn much about the role of the Bund and life in pre and post-revolutionary Russia, we get smaller insights into the lives of Russian emigres during the second half of the Twentieth Century. We see how each generation gets more and more distanced from their Russian roots as the family all are raised in and are citizens of other countries, in this “case study,” mostly England.

Clearly, What You Did Not Tell is a tale that would appeal to a rather restricted, limited audience. Mark Mazower has written twelve volumes on European history including Governing the World: The History of an Idea, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations, Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, as well as a number of scholarly tomes on Greek history. He uses the same tone in his family history, along with a lengthy section of appendices and scholarly apparatus. We get the facts, when known, the most credible speculations, when they are all he has, and little veering into opinion or emotion. So if this subject matter interests you, then you get a well-written volume that is very revelatory in its first chapters, less so as it progresses.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Aug. 7, 2017

Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War
Preston Fleming
Publisher: PF Publishing (October 15, 2017)
Publication Date: October 15, 2017
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
ASIN: B075RRR682
https://www.amazon.com/Maid-Baikal-No...

Reviewed by Dr. Wesley Britton

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of reading and reviewing a string of titles from author Preston Fleming. These books have included FORTY Days at Kamas, Star Chamber Brotherhood, Exile Hunter, Bride of a Bygone War, and Dynamite Fisherman. For each of these adventures, it was difficult or impossible for me to predict where Fleming was going to take his readers. I did know that his knowledge of history was going to provide depth and verisimilitude to his stories. In addition, he’s always had a knack for fleshing out memorable characters.

It’s been three years since we had a new Fleming novel to read, so in some ways Maid of Baikal is long overdue. But “long” is the operative word for this epic yarn. Once again, there’s no way to predict what is going to happen in this new alternative history about the Russian Civil War of 1917-1919, especially as the story opens in a battle in the Philippines. Then, events in Russia don’t go the way of actual history, even if Fleming’s settings, events, and characters are more often than not, completely believable. For the most part. That’s despite the fact the Siberian “Maid of Baikal,” Zhanna Dorokhina, is very much in the mold of Joan of Arc. She’s a young woman hearing voices that prophecy the future, give her the perseverance and charisma to take her message to Admiral Kolchak, who is the skeptical and uneasy leader of the White Russians, and provide her with impossiblely spot on military advice as she leads one of the White Russian armies against the Bolsheviks. So, in a number of sections, we’re experiencing mystical mythology as much as alternate reality.

But Dorokhina’s quest is but one plotline woven throughout the long epic. We spend much more time with Ned Du Pont, allegedly an American advisor to the undersupplied and unorganized White Russians. In fact, He’s a spy whose main mission is to find ways to help the various anti-Bolshevik armies beef up their manpower, resources, and strength while keeping his government constantly up to date with what is going on with the White Russian forces. He’s a consistent if reluctant supporter of Dorokhina, even after he learns the two of them are not likely to have the romantic connection he hopes for. At First. For a rich Russian widow sees him, likes what she sees, and a full-blown affair begins despite the rules against American/ Russian fraternization of this kind.

Such relationships are painted with subtle shadings as Ned, the Maid, the Admiral, and the widow are drawn into more and more complex situations involving a wide cast of characters. And this cast all have a large spectrum of conflicting motivations, most revolving around self-interest. From the beginning, Fleming makes it clear he has rather cerebral purposes in mind, such as his opening each chapter with a literary or historical quotation followed by a note suggesting the chapter in question be read while listening to chosen selections from specific period Russian musical compositions. I suspect few of us will take the time to leap through these hoops; still, give the man points for creativity.

In short, Preston Fleming has spun a yarn full of originality with a unique approach giving us a rather positive alternate storyline of what might have happened if the White Russians, the Yanks, the British as well as God above had cooperated in the years following World War I. I admit, there are sections that drag, as in the extended cease fire in the latter chapters. It’s a refreshing perspective in this era of dystopian fears for our future to imagine instead what might have happened if Lenin and Trotsky had failed.

This review first appeared at BookPleasures.com on Dec. 31, 2017:
http://1clickurls.com/IiOt_U3