The Mystery of Olga Chekhova: The true story of a family torn apart by revolution and war - Hardcover

Beevor, Antony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670915203 ISBN 13: 9780670915200

Publisher: Viking, 2004

Synopsis

This book, based largely on new material, is a spin off from Berlin: The Downfall 1945. Antony Beevor has put together from many sources a fascinating account of a Russo-German family. Several members are trapped in Hitler's Berlin as the Red Army fights its way in at the end of April 1945. The rest of their relatives in Moscow are half-expecting to be arrested by the NKVD secret police at any moment because their niece appeared in photographs with Hitler and members of his entourage. It is an extraordinary story from extraordinary times.

About this title

Review:

Compelling . . . as engaging a read as Stalingrad and Berlin (Guardian)

Fascinating. An intricate, gracefully told and often moving social history of a talented family in times of revolution, civil war, dictatorship and world conflict (Rachel Polonsky New Statesman)

A fascinating spy story, a delicious entertainment, a compelling investigation (Simon Sebag-Montefiore Evening Standard)

An extraordinary drama of exile and espionage (Boyd Tonkin Independent)

Beevor uses the story to evoke a world - the vague ideological borderlands of Nazism and Communism (Felipe Fernández-Armesto The Times)

From the Back Cover:

'An extraordinary drama of exile and espionage'
Boyd Tonkin, Independent

'Compelling . . . as engaging a read as Stalingrad and Berlin' Guardian

Olga Chekhova was the niece of playwright Anton Chekhov and a Russian beauty. She was also a famous Nazi-era film actress, closely associated with Adolf Hitler.

After fleeing Bolshevik Moscow for Berlin in 1920, she was recruited by her composer brother Lev to work for Soviet intelligence; in return, her family were allowed to join her. By 1945, several of them were trapped in Berlin as the Red Army approached; meanwhile, as Olga had appeared in photographs with Hitler and his entourage, the rest of her family in Moscow were waiting to be arrested by the NKVD secret police.

The dramatic tale of how one family survived through the Russian Revolution, the Civil War, the rise of Hitler and Stalin, and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union is, in Antony Beevor's hands, a breathtaking tale of glamour and survival.

It's an extraordinary story of extraordinary times.

'Fascinating. An intricate, gracefully told and often moving social history of a talented family in times of revolution, civil war, dictatorship and world conflict' Rachel Polonsky, New Statesman

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0670915203
• ISBN 13: 9780670915200
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 300