Memoir Russia

How did a once faceless bureaucrat, a man whose own wife said he was born under the sign of the vampire, become the idealized face of Russian manhood and its authoritarian leader? Deputy Mayor Putin examines the man behind the myth. We will explore how Putin’s formative years shaped and drove him and how the supporting cast of characters he gathered along the way helped him get to the Kremlin’s inner sanctum.

A brilliant investigative narrative: How six average Soviet men rose to the pinnacle of Russia's battered economy. David Hoffman, former Moscow bureau chief for

The Washington Post, sheds light onto the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men Hoffman reveals how a few players managed to take over Russia's cash-strapped economy and then divvy it up in loans-for-shares deals.

This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin, the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history.

BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK An Irish Times book of the year 2022 A powerful, probing book about PTSD. As a journalist Keane has covered conflict and brutality across the world for more than thirty years, from Rwanda, Sudan, South Africa, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and many more. Driven...

A James Beard Award-winning writer captures life under the Red socialist banner in this wildly inventive, tragicomic memoir of feasts, famines, and three generations Born in 1963, in an era of bread shortages, Anya grew up in a communal Moscow apartment where eighteen families...

This is the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin from his birth to the October Revolution of 1917, a panoramic and often chilling account of how an impoverished, idealistic youth from the provinces of tsarist Russia was transformed into a cunning and fearsome outlaw who would one day become one of the 20th century's most ruthless dictators. In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him.

Brought to you by Penguin. Just after the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer, Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune. This rare opportunity took the famous travellers not only to Moscow and Stalingrad -...

Nicholas Daniloff's arrest by the KGB in the fall of 1986 made headlines around the world, but the roots of that story ran deeper than anyone knew. Daniloff's imprisonment was in fact an echo of his family's past, for his great-great grandfather, Alexander Frolov, was also a prisoner of the Russian state. In this rich and absorbing book, Daniloff weaves a double narrative that vividly brings two worlds to life.

Published in 1913, My Childhood is the first in an autobiographical trilogy by the Russian writer and five-time Nobel Prize-nominee Maxim Gorky. Painfully moving in places, the book tells of the experiences of a young boy who goes to live with his grandparents following the death of his father. Gorky’s depiction of 19th-century Russia through the eyes of his younger self is remarkable. As he recalls memories of his youth, contrasting themes and emotions are revealed, from barbaric joy to dark gloom, genuine cruelty and saint-like forbearance.

When did Russia lose its chance of freedom? This is the story of how a nation's dreams of democracy died. Drawing on buried archives and off-the-record interviews, exiled journalist Mikhail Fishman gives a gripping insider account of the tragedy of modern Russia, told through the many lives of Boris Nemtsov - activist, playboy, leader-in-waiting, dissident and, finally, victim.

Among the leaders of the 20th century, arguably none shaped the course of history as much as Vladimir Lenin. If Adolf Hitler had not inflicted the devastation of World War II upon Europe, it's quite likely that the West would consider Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) the 20th century's greatest tyrant. Along with Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky led the October Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and held crucial posts in the early Soviet governments.

This audiobook offers the first systematic analysis of Putin's two wars, placing the Second Chechen War and the War with Georgia of 2008 in their broader historical contexts. Drawing on extensive original Russian sources, Marcel H. Van Herpen analyzes in detail how Putin's wars were prepared and conducted and why they led to allegations of war crimes and genocide.

"An important and necessary book... a work of honesty and humanity," Mishal Husain "This is a unique and necessary book. The Good Russian takes us inside wartime Russia, to a city that Jana Bakunina knows intimately. She brings us face to face with ordinary Russians, and also tells her own...

On a sunny September day in 1931, Soviet spy Stanislav Shumovsky walked down the gangplank of the SS Europa and into New York, concealed in a group of 65 Soviet students. Joseph Stalin had sent him to acquire American secrets to help close the USSR’s yawning technology gap. In this thrilling history, Svetlana Lokhova takes the listener on a journey through Stalin’s most audacious intelligence operation, piecing together every aspect of Shumovsky’s life and character using information derived from American and Russian archives.

From the streets of Moscow to a new life in America, From Red Square to Main Street tells the powerful story of Alisa Mizelle's journey through love, survival, and transformation. In this gripping memoir, Alisa Mizelle opens her heart to reveal a life marked by hardship, heartache, and hope. Born into a harsh Soviet childhood, she endured emotional neglect, abandonment, and physical abuse. Yet, through it all, she dreamed of a better life—one filled with love, security, and family. Her escape from Soviet Russia was just the beginning of a life marked by sacrifice and resilience.

Harold Lamb's superb story-telling and clear, sharp scholarship are focused on Peter the Great, his gigantic labors to raise Russia in one generation to cultural equality with Europe, and his efforts to mold and shape a sprawling empire. At the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, the city of Moscow had extended its sway eastward through the Asiatic continent. People began to ask, "Will the city control the continent?" or "Will the continent control the city?" These were crucial questions...questions that continue to bedevil Russians to this day.

Vladimir Putin is the current president of Russia, serving in his third term since 2012. He started his career as an intelligence officer and politician. Raised and educated in the Soviet Union, he saw great prosperity and growth during his first term. His leadership has been fraught with accusations and scandals, particularly in his handling of human rights and justice cases, as well as his alleged involvement in the United States politics.

From the court of Imperial Russia to Foxley Manor in Herefordshire, the story begins with the First World War. Part One takes the listener through the Russian Revolution to the formation of the Second Polish Republic and the Polish-Bolshevik war. Part Two begins at the outset to World War Two with the German invasion on September 1st, 1939, and the subsequent invasion by the Soviet Union on the 17th of the same month. The listener is taken through the early months of soviet occupation and then on to the first wave of Polish deportations to Siberia.

Marvin Kalb, the award-winning journalist who has written extensively about the world he reported on during his long career, now turns his eye on the young man who became that journalist. Chosen by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow to become one of what came to be known as the Murrow Boys, Kalb in this newest volume of his memoirs takes listeners back to his first days as a journalist, and what also were the first days of broadcast news.

Cutting through the confusion and the media hype surrounding the infamous Russia-Ukraine conflict, this illuminating collection offers a factual, concise, and up-to-date account of the key events and figures in this rapidly unfolding war. With a play-by-play recap of the long-running tensions between these two countries and their places on the world stage, you’ll also discover how their struggle has spilled out to impact politics across the globe.