The great Russian poet became a master of the English language in his long American exile: these essays evoke his youth in post-WW2 Leningrad with memorable portraits of his parents, in whom... read more
Written in 2015 by the chess grandmaster and human rights activist, this passionate indictment of Russian kleptocracy is also a warning against the complacency of Western democracies in the ... read more
The legendary Russian pianist, friend of Pasternak and other greats, who fell from grace to live precariously on the fringes of Soviet society. EW is the author of fine biographies of Shosta... read more
We heard about Molotov's library in Rachel Polonsky's superb Molotov's Magic Lantern (£12.99). Now we have a portrait of Stalin through the books he read - and he was an avid reader all his... read more
Lucy Atkinson (1817-1893) was an English Atkinson was an English nanny working in Russia. In 1848 she set out with her new husband on a six-year exploration of Siberia and Central Asia, by f... read more
JR wrote a superb novel ('Kozlowski') about the Katyn massacre. This book uses the testimonies of survivors and investigators to understand how the effects of the massacre rippled on for de... read more