Reading the 20th Century discussion

This week on BBC Four there are some very enticing looking programmes about Russian history most of which are relevant for this group's time period.....


Revolution: New Art for a New World
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09f2m3p

Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06vm9qp

The Real Doctor Zhivago
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09djrvr

Who Killed Rasputin?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0078sbd

Masterspy of Moscow - George Blake
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05nyyd9

Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lcxms

Russia's Lost Princesses
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04fljy7

Russia 1917: Countdown to Revolution
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...

How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ml582

I have just been programming my recorder to record all these interesting looking programmes. I hope to actually watch them too, although that's always the trickier bit.

Thank you for the information, Nigeyb.

A lot are repeats, but I will certainly be recording many of them. I enjoyed the book of How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin too: The Untold Story of a Noisy Revolution

Talking of history (although not Russian!), I am taking my children to a fireworks party tonight. Remember, remember the 5th of November everyone, stay safe and have fun :)

I don't know much about Russia, though of course as a child I was interested in Anastasia and whether or not she actually died. I've recently read The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra and really enjoyed it. It wasn't so narrow as the title suggests, but was definitely more about the female line, and then the last Romanov family. I have a biography of Catherine the Great I'd like to read, and that newish book about the whole Romanov line.

Those programs sound interesting. I think the Lucy Worsley one is on Netflix here... At least I feel I've seen it... I wish we got more British programming, but Netflix does seem to be getting us a bunch.

What a coincidence! I have just this minute finished reading Alexander Pushkin's A Fisherman and a Fish which is meant to be a veiled criticism of Catherine The Great and the wars against Turkey in late 1700's

Bronwyn, if this Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman is the bio you're referring to, it is wonderful. I read it years ago and it's now on my TBR pile for a re-read.

Barbara wrote: "Bronwyn, if this Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman is the bio you're referring to, it is wonderful. I read it years ago and it's now on my TBR pile for a re-read."

It is. Good to know! Thanks, Barbara. :)

I am planning on reading Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad this month. I got this as a free audiobook through the SYNC program last year but didn't know until the other day that this was nonfiction. I am also posting this on the music in books thread so apologies for the duplication.

I read Leningrad: Siege and Symphony: The Story of the Great City Terrorized by Stalin, Starved by Hitler, Immortalized by Shostakovich and found it terribly moving.

Nigeyb wrote: "This week on BBC Four there are some very enticing looking programmes about Russian history most of which are relevant for this group's time period.....


Revolution: New Art for a New World
http:/..."

Thank you for this!

I watched "Russia 1917" yesterday, it was interesting.

I have everything on record and anticipate a Russian themed weekend :) Although not that keen on TV drama, I do love a good documentary.

Oh that's a good one, Leslie. I read it last year and really enjoyed it.

I've now watched this one....


Nigeyb wrote:

"Masterspy of Moscow - George Blake

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05nyyd9"

...and it's a wonderful documentary about the life of the notorious MI6 double agent who, having betrayed a large part of Britain’s Cold War spy network to the KGB, made a dramatic prison break from Wormwood Scrubs in 1966 and fled to exile in Russia.

It starts with the moment George Carey, the documentary maker, finally tracked down the now 92-year-old Blake at a snow-encrusted dacha outside Moscow.....

“And there he was. The spy who got away"

By the end of the film the viewer is left with an overwhelming sense of the pointlessness of the Cold War.

Blake's refusal at the end to talk about Russia today, and most especially Vladimir Putin (on whom his pension depends), betrayed a keener sense of disillusion than words ever could.

I have loads to watch and anticipate a very Russian themed weekend.

I noticed that The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport is available on Kindle US for $2.99. It is a repeat offer.

That's a good book, Jan.

I just read that one not long ago. I really enjoyed it!

Nigeyb wrote: "This week on BBC Four there are some very enticing looking programmes about Russian history most of which are relevant for this group's time period.....

Who Killed Rasputin?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0078sbd"

Last night I finished watching Who Killed Rasputin?

Pretty good, though the key points could have been conveyed in about five minutes. It did make me want to read more about (Ra ra) Rasputin (lover of the Russian Queen, there was a cat that really was gone).

Here's a summary of the documentary's findings (don't read it if you plan to watch the programme and don't want to know the big reveal)...

A forthcoming BBC Timewatch documentary, Who Killed Rasputin? - BBC TWO, Friday 1 October, 9.00pm - proves that Rasputin was murdered by British Secret Service operatives.

The programme-makers re-opened the investigation into his death and found conclusive evidence to suggest that Rasputin was murdered in St Petersburg in 1916 in a plot hatched by rogue members of the British Secret Service – with a fatal shot fired at close range by Secret Agent Oswald Rayner.

The documentary is based on extraordinary new evidence uncovered by intelligence historian, and programme consultant, Andrew Cook.

In addition, BBC Timewatch brought in Richard Cullen, former Metropolitan Police Commander, and a trainer of police cadets in forensic detective work in Russia, to re open the case.

Re-examining the original autopsy reports, Richard Cullen found that the original explanation for Rasputin's death did not tally with the forensic evidence.

In particular, he questions one of the key autopsy photographs which shows a gunshot wound situated in the centre of Rasputin's forehead, which bears the hallmarks of a professional assassination.

The accepted version of Rasputin's death states that he was poisoned, then shot, and finally drowned in the River Nevka by five disaffected aristocrats, led by Prince Felix Yusupov.

The conspirators were said to be concerned about Rasputin's influence on Tsar Nicholas II, and his wife Tsarina Alexandra.

Over the years historians have questioned Yusupov's version of events but failed to come up with credible alternative theories.

In Yusupov's memoirs, Cullen noted the presence of a character called Oswald Rayner - said to be a friend of Yusupov's from Oxford University, who appears suddenly in the book at the time of the murder.

The Timewatch team discovered that Oswald Rayner was in fact an active British Secret Intelligence Service operative who was working alongside senior SIS officer, John Scale.

Scale's daughter provided Cullen with key evidence of the murder plot and Andrew Cook, consultant to the programme, uncovered an official memo on British Intelligence Mission notepaper to Captain John Scale, which led Cullen directly to the assassin.

"I am amazed by the outcome of the investigation," states Cook, "when we initially began researching the story I had no idea that the forensic evidence would substantiate the historical documentation so conclusively."

Richard Cullen says of the investigation: "I was stunned that the trail of Rasputin's murder led so conclusively to the British Secret Service.

"In all John Scale's official documentation Rasputin is referred to as 'Dark Forces' and it is my belief that Rasputin was a seen a real threat to the British.

"Had he persuaded the Tsar to pull out of the First World War, the Allies would have been overwhelmed on the Western Front by German troops no longer needed to fight the Russians in the East."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pres...

I am working my way through these and have the Cambridge Spies documentaries saved too. Even though some are repeats, I like the themed evenings, where you can pick up several programmes about something which may interest you.

Nigeyb wrote: "I've now watched this one....


Nigeyb wrote:

"Masterspy of Moscow - George Blake

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05nyyd9"

...and it's a wonderful documentary about the life of the notorious ..."
I think the BBC reporter chose his words carefully when he said Blake was the 'spy who got away.' Blake was told to go.

Daniel wrote: "I think the BBC reporter chose his words carefully when he said Blake was the 'spy who got away.' Blake was told to go. "

Intriguing Daniel - are you suggesting that his prison escape was orchestrated by the British Secret Service?

Personally, I've found it to be a dangerous business committing one's knowledge or suspicions to print. However, as I'm old and clearly no threat to anyone I would point you towards someone who was referred to as more a socialite than a socialist and any reasons that man might have had to wish Blake well gone.
Mind you, I would take what I say with a pinch of salt. After all, who am I?

Interesting. I cannot think to whom you refer, but nothing would surprise me.

I was struck by just how easy it appeared for George to get out of Wormwood Scrubs and then make his escape. His peace campaigner friends simply keeping him safe in London before letting him ride to East Germany in the seat of their camper van.

Precisely

I've started Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman and am really enjoying it so far! So far it's not really Russian though, as I've only just gotten to her arrival in Russia. :)

More anniversaries:

17th July 1918 - Romanov family executed. It is thought for a while that the son and one daughter might have survived, they didn't.
30th August 1918 - Vladimir Lenin is shot and wounded by Fanny Kaplan in Moscow. He survives, but never fully recovers.

11th November 1918 - Formation of independent Poland
21st November 1918 - Pogrom of Lwow or Lviv or Lemberg
(some of Poland was formerly part of the Russian Empire, some was formerly part of the Austrian Empire and some was formerly part of Germany, but this seemed to be the best place to put it).

Leslie wrote: "I am planning on reading Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad..."

Susan wrote: "I read Leningrad: Siege and Symphony: The Story of the Great City Terrorized by Stalin, Starved by Hitler, Immortalized by Shostakovich..."

I just came across a good little radio programme about Shostakovich's Symphony No 7....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0198krt

Talking of Shostakovich's Symphony No 7, I recently received a recommendation for....


The Siege by Helen Dunmore

Has anyone read it?

It sounds very good, if predictably harrowing, given the subject matter

Called "elegantly, starkly beautiful" by The New York Times Book Review, The Siege is Helen Dunmore's masterpiece. Her canvas is monumental -- the Nazis' 1941 winter siege on Leningrad that killed six hundred thousand -- but her focus is heartrendingly intimate.

One family, the Levins, fights to stay alive in their small apartment, held together by the unlikely courage and resourcefulness of twenty-two-year-old Anna. Though she dreams of an artist's life, she must instead forage for food in the ever more desperate city and watch her little brother grow cruelly thin. Their father, a blacklisted writer who once advocated a robust life of the mind, withers in spirit and body. At such brutal times everything is tested. And yet Dunmore's inspiring story shows that even then, the triumph of the human heart is that love need not fall away.



The Siege by Helen Dunmore

I have this to read - I loved the sequel, The Betrayal, felt wrung out by the end as if I'd lived through Stalin's Great Terror myself!

Thanks Roman Clodia. Helen Dunmore sounds like a wonderful writer who I really need to investigate soon.

I'm thinking of choosing The Siege for my book group - but wonder if it might not be a bit too gruelling.

I'm also mulling over Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile (about the life of troubled playwright Andrea Dunbar) - perhaps aligned to a viewing of recent film version of 'The Arbor'. All of which would also be quite gruelling, albeit in a different kind of way.

Dunmore's a brilliant writer, even if all her topics are not to my taste. I would say, though, that she doesn't shy away from difficult and traumatic situations and it's difficult to see how else you would write about Leningrad - so I would definitely expect gruelling, which might not be to everyone's taste...

Thanks Roman Clodia - you've inspired me to read some Helen Dunmore soon.


Roman Clodia wrote: "....Helen Dunmore doesn't shy away from difficult and traumatic situations and it's difficult to see how else you would write about Leningrad..."

Absolutely. I am not sure how different the sieges were in Leningrad and Stalingrad but assume the occupants of both cities suffered similar levels of depravation. If so, if Helen Dunmore includes only a fraction of what is contained in Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943 then I can well imagine it would make for a very tough read.

A well written novel will frequently carry more emotional impact as we can more readily relate to the suffering of the characters.

I've convinced myself that it is probably too much for a book group discussion. I'll stick with Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile. Although I've got another month to make a final decision so will probably have come up with numerous other ideas between now and then.

Nigeyb wrote: "A well written novel will frequently carry more emotional impact as we can more readily relate to the suffering of the characters.

Yes, that's exactly the case for me - however necessary the facts and sweep of narrative history are, it's the personal in fiction that makes me feel.

For fans of Helen Dunmore:
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/he...

I'm in the middle of reading Solomon Volkov's St. Petersburg: A Cultural History, which I highly recommend.

Ten Days that Shook the World is being re-published on kindle for £2.99.

Ten Days That Shook the World is a book by the American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders closely during his time in Russia. John Reed died in 1920, shortly after the book was finished, and he is one of the few Americans buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow, a site normally reserved only for the most prominent Soviet leaders.

John Reed was on an assignment for The Masses, a magazine of socialist politics, when he was reporting the Russian Revolution. Although Reed states that he had "tried to see events with the eye of a conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth" during the time of the event, he stated in the preface that "in the struggle my sympathies were not neutral" (since the book leans towards the Bolsheviks and their viewpoints). Before John Reed left for Russia, the Espionage Act was passed on June 15, 1917, which fined and imprisoned anyone who interfered with the recruiting of soldiers and prohibited the mailing of any newspaper or magazine that promoted such sentiments.

The U. S. Postal Service was also given leave to deny any mailing that fitted these standards from further postal delivery, and then to disqualify a magazine because it had missed a mailing and hence, was no longer considered a regular publication. Because of this, The Masses was forced by the United States federal government to cease publication in the fall of 1917, after refusing to change the magazine's policy against the war. The Liberator, founded by Max Eastman under his and his sister's private control, published Reed's articles concerning the Russian Revolution instead. In an effort to ensure the magazine's survival, Eastman compromised and tempered its views accordingly.

Upon returning from Russia during April 1918 from Kristiania in Norway, after being barred from either traveling to the United States or returning to Russia since February 23 by the State Department, Reed's trunk of notes and materials on the revolution—which included Russian handbills, newspapers, and speeches—were seized by custom officials, who interrogated him for four hours over his activities in Russia during the previous eight months.

Michael Gold, an eyewitness to Reed's arrival to Manhattan, recalls how "a swarm of Department of Justice men stripped him, went over every inch of his clothes and baggage, and put him through the usual inquisition. Reed had been sick with ptomaine on the boat. The inquisition had also been painful." Back home during mid-summer 1918, Reed, worried that "his vivid impressions on the revolution would fade," fought hard to regain his papers from the possession of the government, who refused to return them.

Looks an interesting read.

I'm a few chapters into...


October: The Story of the Russian Revolution by China Miéville

It's very readable and gives a wonderful flavour of the excitement and confusion of the Russian Revolution. There's nothing of the subsequent ideological battles, just the dazzling reality of events.

It's a splendid evocation of one of the most turbulent year in Russia’s history: strikes, protests, riots, looting, mass desertions from the army, land occupations by hungry peasants and pitched battles between workers and Cossacks, not just in Petrograd but along the length and breadth of a vast country.

October: The Story of the Russian Revolution is also the moderators' choice for our December 2019 The Russian Revolution themed month which I now eagerly anticipate.

I can now confidently state that one of the destinations for my imaginary time machine would be Petrograd in 1917. What an extraordinary time.

I have just started this. I have only been to Russia once, but would love to go back. Leningrad/St Petersburg is such a beautiful city.

I envy you having Leningrad/St Petersburg in your mind's eye as you read this book - it should certainly add an extra dimension of enjoyment

I don't think it is necessary to visit a place to picture it, but it was certainly an interesting, and beautiful, city. I was pleased that you enjoyed, "The Noise of Time," as well as enjoying, "October." I am currently reading both, as well as still reading, "Life and Fate," so very much a Russian month!

That's very impressive Susan.


I'm about halfway through October: The Story of the Russian Revolution. It's hard to keep track of who is who but, despite this, the sense of a rollercoaster of events is sweeping me along. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It goes well with The Noise of Time, as the focus there is the banal horror of Stalinism. The hangover after the riotious party, if you will.

Very well put, Nigeyb!

Thanks Susan.


I'm racing through October: The Story of the Russian Revolution.

I'm not sure I'd be able to do well in an exam but, as I suggested in my previous post, it's dizzying stuff and our Mod choice for next month gives a real flavour of the changeable and mercurial times.

My enjoyment and interest makes me very tempted to read Ten Days that Shook the World (1919) is a book by the American journalist and socialist John Reed, also about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917.

I'm sure a few members will have already read it. I'd be interested in a contemporaneous account....

John Reed's vivid eye-witness account of his time in Petrograd was written in early 1918 and published in the USA the following year. It was an instant best-seller, so much so that in Russia it was some years before Stalin - who is only mentioned twice in the book - felt he could ban it for its portrayal of Trotsky. Possibly naïve, definitely politically one-sided, nevertheless the veracity and impact of Reed's enthusiastic snapshot-style reportage has become a classic memoir and inspired films including Eisenstein's classic 'October' and 'Reds' which won an Oscar for its director and star, Warren Beatty.

My reserved copy of October: The Story of the Russian Revolution has arrived at the library, but I didn't have time to collect it today.

Great news Val. I look forward to your reaction

I'm going to read...


Notes from the Underground (1864) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

...for my book group.

It's considered by many to be one of the first existentialist novels

Has anyone read it?

According to Wikipedia, in the 1860s, Russia was beginning to absorb the ideas and culture of Western Europe at an accelerated pace, nurturing an unstable local climate. There was a growth in revolutionary activity accompanying a general restructuring of tsardom where liberal reforms, enacted by an unwieldy autocracy, only induced a greater sense of tension in both politics and civil society. Many of Russia's intellectuals were engaged in a debate with the Westernisers on one hand, and the Slavophiles on the other, concerned with favouring import of Western reforms or promoting pan-Slavic traditions to address Russia's particular social reality. Although Tsar Alexander emancipated the serfs in 1861, Russia was still very much a post-medieval, traditional peasant society.

When Notes from the Underground was written, there was an intellectual ferment on discussions regarding religious philosophy and various 'enlightened' utopian ideas.

Ooh, I've long wanted to read this but feel I should get to The Brothers Karamazov first. Do report back on how you find it, Nigeyb.

Your IRL book group reads some interesting stuff - mine tends to focus on big popular novels like Jodi Picoult which never really interest me :(

Yes, I'm quite lucky. We usually have an interesting title to read and discuss.