The Story of Russia

Orlando Figes is an award-winning author and historian, who has held teaching posts at Birkbeck College, University of London and Trinity College, University of Cambridge. He was born in London in 1959 and studied History at the University of Cambridge. Figes is the bestselling author of nine books on Russian and European history, including Natasha's Dance and A People's Tragedy. His books have been translated into over 30 languages.

'A magnificent, magisterial thousand year history of Russia . . . by one of the masters of Russian scholarship' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE 'If you really want to understand Putin's Russia today . . . then you simply have to read Figes's superb account in The Story of Russia' ANTONY BEEVORFrom the great storyteller of Russia, a spellbinding account of the myths and ideologies that have shaped the country's past - and how they can inform its present.No other country has reimagined its own past so frequently, or endured such vast differences in ruling ideologies, as Russia. This story begins in the first millennium, when the Viking-Slavic state of Kievan Rus was formed, and ends with Putin's war against Ukraine. Spanning the medieval myths of Russia's holy mission, the popular belief in a paternal tsar and the notion of the 'Russian soul', Orlando Figes explores the ideas that have guided the country's actions throughout its long and troubled history.Here, Figes brings into sharp relief the recurrent themes that remain so important in understanding the country today, through the vibrant characters of its rich history: from Boris and Gleb, the first saints of the Russian Church, to the crowning of sixteen-year-old Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral; and from Catherine the Great, riding out in a green uniform to arrest her husband at his palace, to the bitter last days of the Romanovs.Beautifully written and based on a lifetime of scholarship, The Story of Russia is quintessential Figes: sweeping, suspenseful, masterful.-------------------------PRAISE FOR ORLANDO FIGES'An outstanding historian and writer, he brings distant history so close that you could feel its heartbeat'KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD'The great storyteller of modern Russian historians'SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE, FINANCIAL TIMES'Figes knows more about Russia than any other historian'MAX HASTINGS, SUNDAY TIMES

A publishing event from one of our most gifted storytellers: the expansive and enthralling history of Russia, from its foundations to the present

The Story of Russia will be a magisterial package, full of illustrations, that is both a gripping read and a wonderful gift for the Christmas season.