Although 1989 and 1991 witnessed more spectacular events, 1990 was a year of embryonic change in Russia: Article 6 of the constitution was abolished, and with it the Party's monopoly on political power. This fascinating collection of documentary evidence crystalises the aspirations of the Russian people in the days before Communism finally fell.It charts - among many other social developments - the appearance of new political parties and independent trade unions, the rapid evolutio...

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER****WINNER OF THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS 2024 BOOK OF THE YEAR**Patriot is the unforgettable life story of one of the most fearless and inspiring figures of our time.**Alexei Navalny’s poisoning in 2020 by the Russian security services was a global news event. In 2024 he died in a brutal Arctic prison. He began writing Patriot whilst recovering from his poisoni...

“Anna Politkovskaya defined the human conscience. Her relentless pursuit of the truth in the face of danger and darkness testifies to her distinguished place in journalism—and humanity. This book deserves to be widely read.”—Christiane AmanpourAnna Politkovskaya, one of Russia’s most fearless journalists, was gunned down in a contract killing in Moscow in the fall of 2006. Just before her death, Politkovskaya completed this searing, intimate record of life in Russi...

Plucked from every background, and led by an N.K.V.D. Major, the new recruits who boarded a train in Moscow on 16th October 1941 to go to war had much in common with millions of others across the world. What made the 586th Fighter Regiment, the 587th Heavy-bomber Regiment and the 588th Regiment of light night-bombers unique was their gender: the Soviet Union was creating the first all-female active combat units in modern history.Drawing on original interviews with surviving airwome...

The first English-language account of Ivan Morozov and his ambition to build one of the world’s greatest collections of modern art**“A century of Russian culture distilled in the story of the life, family and collection of the lavish, lazy, kindly, eccentric grandson of a serf who brought Monet and Matisse to Moscow, waited three years for the right 'Blue Gauguin'—and survived the first years of Bolshevik rule.”—Jackie Wullschläger, Financial Times "Best Bo...

From the author of the internationally acclaimed Putin's Russia and A Russian Diary.Until her murder in October 2006, Anna Politkovskaya wrote for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, winning international fame for her reporting on the Chechen wars and, more generally, on Russian politics and state corruption. Nothing But the Truth is a definitive collection of Anna Politkovskaya's best writings: a lasting and inspiring book from one fo the great...

Winner of a PEN Translates AwardNamed a Most Anticipated Book by Literary HubWhen Anya is arrested at a Moscow anti-corruption rally under false pretences, she is given a 10-day sentence at a detention centre. Her cellmates are five other ordinary women arrested on petty charges.Ten listless days stretch before Anya and, as she appeals her sentence and recalls her progress from apolitical youth to informed citizen, she is tr...

As one of the heroes of the 1917 February Revolution and then Prime Minister at the head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky was passionately, even fanatically, lauded as a leader during his brief political reign. Symbolic artefacts – sculptures, badges and medals - featuring his likeness abounded. Streets were renamed after him, his speeches were quoted on gravestones and literary odes dedicated to him proliferated in the major press. But, by October, Kerensky had been uncer...

This book recounts one of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century: the siege of Leningrad. It is based on the searing testimony of eyewitnesses, some of whom managed to survive, while others were to die in streets devastated by bombing, in icy houses, or the endless bread queues. All of them, nevertheless, wanted to pass on to us the story of the torments they endured, their stoicism, compassion and humanity, and of how people reached out to each other in the nightmare of the siege...

Vladimir Makanin, was the great Russian chronicler of post-Soviet society, the new Russia that is seeking to expand and bringing new terror to the world today. With taut psychological depth, wry humor, caricature, and surreal fantasy, Makanin explores the roots of that society, including inside his own head.The hero of Baize-Covered Table undergoes a searching bureaucratic 'investigation', that staple of the old Soviet and even older Russian police state. With the naked in...

After years of rapprochement, the relationship between Russia and the West is more strained now than it has been in the past 25 years. Putin’s motives, his reasons for seeking confrontation with the West, remain for many a mystery. Not for Mikhail Gorbachev. In this new work, Russia’s elder statesman draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience to reveal the development of Putin’s regime and the intentions behind it. He argues that Putin has significantly diminished the achievements of ...

In the archives of the Memorial International Human Rights Centre in Moscow is an extraordinary diary, a rare first-person testimony of a commander of guards in a Soviet labour camp.Ivan Chistyakov was sent to the Gulag in 1935, where he worked at the Baikal-Amur Corrective Labour Camp for over a year. Life at the Gulag was anathema to Chistyakov, a cultured Muscovite with a nostalgia for pre-revolutionary Russia, and an amateur painter and poet. He recorded its horrors with an unm...