natashas_dance

NATASHA'S DANCE. A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes.

2002. Penguin Books. Paperback.

Any classical pianist becomes entranced by Russia and their great
composers for the piano: Mussorgsky, Scriabin and Rachmaninoff and
soon wants to know more about Russian culture. In literature the
giants are Pushkin, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. There are also Russian
legends in ballet and visual art. This book is a dense cultural
history of the Russian greats.

The author is the marvellousy named historian Orlando Figes who has
written many other works on Russia. Natasha's Dance is an exhausting
read and to make progress and keep me motivated I marked the date that
I finished each chapter. The chapters were each about 80 pages long
and each needed a few hours reading.

The chapters are well ordered and concern

1) St Petersburg and the European cultural cringe
2) The impact of France's 1812 invasion and the end of the cringe.
3) Moscow
4) The Peasants
5) Religion
6) Asiatic Mongol Russia
7) Soviet times
8) Expats: Nabokov and Stravinsky

Towards the end of my reading I did some Internet research; I normally
wait until towards the end of reading a book before extra research, in
case I spoil my reading experience. My research quickly showed that
Figes disgraced himself on the Internet, twice. He anonymously tried
to trash the reputation and works of another great writer on Russia,
Robert Service. And when he got discovered for this, he tried to blame
the postings on his wife using his computer!

I read this book from late November 2021 to late December
2021. Finishing this extensive dense book in a month wasn't bad going;
I read some relaxation books, including SHAM, in the middle and
then returned to Natasha's Dance.

                                      28th March 2023.

My book reviews are at https://github.com/stucooper/booksiveread