The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia - Hardcover

Figes, Orlando

4.26

2,927 ratings by Goodreads

9780713997026: The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0713997028 ISBN 13: 9780713997026

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2007

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Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin, brilliantly conveying the reality of their terrible choices. Soviet history has generally been seen either as a story of a political system or the story of its victims. The Whisperers is about Russians from across the whole range of experience under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it; a society in which everyone spoke in whispers: whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.

This is Figes’s masterpiece. It is both a gripping and emotional account of lives lived in impossible times and a remarkable example of the power and value of writing history.

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Product Description:

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

Review:

'A chilling new book...Figes has become Britain's foremost expert on Revolutionary Russia' -- Max Hastings, Daily Mail

'Be warned. This is a heartrending book...[it] should be made compulsory reading in Russia today.' -- Anthony Beevor, author of STALINGRAD

'Excellent ... riveting, at once solemn and lively. Figes has unwrapped the mystery inside the enigma of Stalinism'
-- The Washington Post

'[A] tremendous achievement...Masterfully controlled and composed...In its amazing testimonies to the strength of the Russian family in the Soviet Union, as well as the awful fissures the system imposed on those families, The Whisperers is like a rainbow over a graveyard.' -- Alexander Cockburn, Sunday Times

'[Figes is] the greatest storyteller of modern historians'
-- Simon Sebag Montefiore

`Brilliant ... he leaves one awed by the beauty and suffering'
-- Max Hastings

`Few historians have the courage to attack great subjects, fewer have the grasp to succeed ... will do more to help us understand the Russian revolution than any other book I know' -- Eric Hobsbawn

`One of the most unforgettable books I have ever read ... a celebration of family love in an epoch of hellish cruelty ... now in this book these righteous heroes have their rightful memorial' -- Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Young Stalin

`The author of A People's Tragedy and Natasha's Dance has outdone himself' -- Daily Telegraph

`This is a heart-rending book ... its importance cannot be overestimated' -- Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad

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