The Russian Chronicles. A Thousand Years That Changed The World: From The Beginnings Of The Land Of Rus To The New Revolution Of Glasnost Today by Obolensky, Dimitri Cecilia Walters editor; Stone Norman; - 1990

UK: Century Communications, 1990. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 11.2 x 8.5 x 1.5 inches. price clipped jacket. The Russian Chronicles The story of Russia, a vast empire straddling Europe and Asia across a never-ending plain, is dark, enigmatic and tangled; rife with paradox and mystery. As barrier to the advancing Mongol hordes, she paid a heavy price keeping Europe free from their Asiatic intentions; as loyal friend of the collapsing Byzantine Empire she divorced herself from western rule and religion. In The Russian Chronicles the people themselves speak out and tell the story of this troubled land from its beginnings to the 1917 Revolution and the birth of the Soviet state, the era of Stalin and the dawning of glasnost. Their voices are recorded in chronicles etched on parchment in distant monasteries, and in the hidden wisdom of folksong; in private letters from refugees and immigrants, as well as official reports from far-flung governors seeking to bring Russian ways to eastern provinces; and in letters and notes from writers who brought their culture from the past into the 19th and 20th centuries. They tell how Kiev, the glistening jewel of medieval Russia, was wiped from the map, plunging the country into near darkness and anarchy; how Ivan the Terrible, in his madness, stamped his bloody mark on the people, massacring those who opposed him, including his own family; how Peter the Great tried, with an energy of which only he was capable, to drag his country into modern Europe; how Catherine the Great turned St Petersburg into a city of wonder and the envy of Europe; how the crushing weight of autocracy collapsed before Lenin's skilful intrigue; and how the 19th and. 20th centuries saw the flowering of some of the world's great names in music, literature, art and the theatre. This is a story without compromise, sometimes agonising in its cruelty and hardship, sometimes heroic and courageous in its battle against fate; but above all, it is the story of a nation in the making; a nation we live with today. Illustrated texts written by experts unravel the complex political and social background; the mysterious origins of the Slavic people; the horrors of serfdom; the life of the nomadic and rebellious Cossacks; the Orthodox Church which proclaimed Moscow as the Third Rome'; the fabulous cities and glorious ceremonial of the Russian Empire; the brutality of the pogroms and heartbreaking mass emigrations; Chekhov, Tolstoy and Pushkin - names that resound in world literature; and the barbaric splendour of Diaghilev's Ballet Russe.