Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys among the defiant people of the Caucasus - Hardcover

Bullough, Oliver

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846141419 ISBN 13: 9781846141416

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2010

Synopsis

Two centuries ago, the Russians pushed out of the cold north towards the Caucasus Mountains, the range that blocked their access to Georgia, Turkey, Persia and India. They were forging their colonial destiny, and the mountains were in their way.

The Caucasus had to be conquered and, for the highlanders who lived there, life would never be the same again.

If the Russians expected it to be an easy fight, however, they were mistaken. Their armies would go on to defeat Napoleon and Hitler, as well as lesser foes, but no one resisted them for as long as these supposed savages.

To hear the stories of the conquest, I travelled far from the mountains. I wandered through the steppes of Central Asia and the cities of Turkey. I squatted outside internment camps in Poland, and drank tea beneath the gentle hills of Israel. The stories I heard amplified the outrages I saw in the mountains themselves. As I set out, in my mind was a Chechen woman I had met in a refugee camp. She lived in a ragged, khaki tent in a field of mud and stones, but she welcomed me with laughter and kindness. Like the mountains of her homeland, her spirit had soared upwards, gleaming and pure. Throughout my travels, I met the same generosity from all the Caucasus peoples.

Their stories have not been told, and there fame is not great, but truly it deserves to be.

About this title

Review:

This wonderful, moving book flashes backwards and forwards over a terrain almost impossible to survey, and manages the feat (Norman Stone)

Lively and impassioned ... a tragically neglected corner of our world (Orlando Figes)

A book that effortlessly mixes on-the-spot reportage and a wide-ranging history . . . Let its fame be great (The Scotsman)

An impressive debut ... heartfelt and compelling ... With this impassioned volume he has struck a blow for the glory of the Caucasus and helped to give voice to the voiceless (Justin Marozzi Financial Times)

[Bullough] brings us exciting news, presented as short, gripping stories that tell of the terrible things that happen to people caught up in constant warfare ... The history of their resistance and resilience has been largely unknown for two centuries. Now their stories are sung by a champion and will resound beyond their boundaries (Ian Finlayson The Times)

Oliver Bullough's book is a painstaking, sensitively reported effort to knit together their [the people of the Caucasus] lost history (Wendell Steavenson Sunday Times)

Bullough should be congratulated on his brave and tireless investigations into an under-reported region of the world (George Walden New Statesman)

Let Our Fame Be Great is a treat ... Finely bound, with excellent maps, Bullough draws you irresistibly into his narrative, fusing reportage, history and travelogue in colourful, absorbing prose ... The book is a pleasure, and most importantly, it is critical to understanding modern Russia with its worrying collective amnesia (Daniel Metcalfe Spectator)

Fascinating and ground-breaking ... Bullough has got plenty of dust, snow and mud on his boots from his travels recording the forgotten tragedies of the North Caucasus ... In the process he [has] unearthed many priceless nuggets of historic truth (Thomas de Waal OpenDemocracy)

A courageous young journalist illuminates one of the world's most ethnically and culturally diverse regions. His travels and historical back-stories show that contemporary brutality in Chechnya is nothing new, and reminds us of the fate of whole nations such as the Circassians, scattered to the winds by Russian imperialism (FT)

About the Author:

Oliver Bullough was born in 1977 and grew up on a sheep farm in mid-Wales. He studied modern history at Oxford University and moved to Russia in 1999. He lived in St Petersburg, Bishkek and Moscow over the next seven years, working as a journalist first for local magazines and newspapers, and then for Reuters news agency. He reported from all over Russia and the former Soviet Union, but liked nothing more than to work among the peoples and mountains of the North Caucasus.

He moved back to Britain in 2006, and has spent the following years travelling for and writing this book.He now lives in east London. He likes to travel, to take photographs, to watch Welsh rugby, to cook and to read.

About this edition

• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1846141419
• ISBN 13: 9781846141416
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 528