The other major formative event Figes omits is the 1990 humiliation of Russia by western World Bank and IMF insistence on the overnight disbanding of Gosplan as a condition of IBRD loans. In The Story of Russia, Orlando Figes brings into sharp relief the vibrant characters that comprise Russia´s rich history, and whose stories remain so important in making sense of the world´s largest nation today – from the crowning of sixteen-year-old Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral, to Catherine the Great, riding out in a green uniform to arrest her husband at his palace, to the bitter last days of the Romanovs.īeautifully written and based on a lifetime of scholarship, The Story of Russia is a major and definitive work from the great storyteller of Russian history: sweeping, suspenseful, masterful. Equally, it’s Russia’s Ukraine invasion which has pushed Sweden and Finland to also apply to join NATO. To understand what Russia´s future holds – to grasp what Putin´s regime means for Russia and the world – we need to unravel the ideas and meanings of that history. How the Russians came to tell their story, and to reinvent it as they went along, is a vital aspect of their history, their culture and beliefs. This book of course is excellent, by a man passionate and knows his topic. So when he writes a full history on the story of Russia and the national myths that make up the nation, it can only hit the mark. He is also incapable of writing a bad book.

No other country has been so divided over its own past as Russia. Orlando Figes is one of the authorities of Russian history. From the great storyteller of Russia, a spellbinding account of the stories that have shaped the country´s past – and how they can inform its present.

The story of russia figes