The Bloody Spectacle: On Vladimir Alexandrov’s “To Break Russia’s Chains”
Douglas Smith reads “To Break Russia’s Chains” by Vladimir Alexandrov and ponders the legacy of notorious terrorist Boris Savinkov.
Douglas Smith is the author of Former People and Rasputin. His new book, The Russian Job: The Forgotten Story of How the United States Saved Russia from Ruin, will be published this autumn. His works have been translated into a dozen languages. He has taught and lectured widely in the United States, Britain, and Europe and has appeared in documentaries for A&E, National Geographic, and the BBC. He is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including a Fulbright scholarship and a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Study Center. His book Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy was a best seller in the UK. It won the inaugural Pushkin House Russian Book Prize in 2013, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and was chosen Book of the Year by Andrew Solomon in Salon. His book, Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs, was published in November 2016.
Douglas Smith reads “To Break Russia’s Chains” by Vladimir Alexandrov and ponders the legacy of notorious terrorist Boris Savinkov.
Douglas Smith investigates two recent books on foreign intervention in the Russian Civil War.
Douglas Smith is chilled by “This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality” by Peter Pomerantsev.
Douglas Smith explores “Catherine & Diderot,” a “scintillating, sophisticated, and nuanced” book by Robert Zaretsky.
Douglas Smith investigates “The Race to Save the Romanovs” by Helen Rappaport.
Douglas Smith on “Memory Laws, Memory Wars,” by Nikolay Koposov, which “makes clear the dangers in trying to legislate our understanding of the past.”
“Russia in Flames” by Laura Engelstein, “Red Famine” by Anne Applebaum, and the legacies of the first communist state.