The Story of Russia

“No other country has reimagined its past so frequently,” writes historian Figes (The Europeans) in this rich and immersive look at how Russia’s national myths are “continuously reconfigured and repurposed to suit its present needs and reimagine its future.” Examining Kievan Rus ruler Grand Prince Vladimir’s baptism into the Eastern Orthodox Church in 988 and Moscow’s emergence, in Russian Orthodox Church doctrine, as the “last true seat of the Christian faith” after the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century, Figes asserts that Russia’s leaders have used these and other legends to rewrite history according to their political agendas. He also details how Catherine the Great supported claims that Russians were descended from Vikings in order to defend autocracy and promote her imperialist ambitions, and traces the mystical notion of the “Russian soul”—“a universal spirit of Christian love and brotherhood innate only in the Russian people, whose providential mission was to save the world from egotism, greed and all the other Western sins”—to Nikolai Gogol’s novel Dead Souls. Figes’s fluid prose (“Nobles gave up Clicquot and Lafite for kvas and vodka, haute cuisine for cabbage soup,” he quips in describing how Russian aristocrats reacted to the French Revolution) keeps the jam-packed narrative from getting bogged down in intricate historical matters. Russophiles will savor this illuminating survey. (Sept.)