Orlando Figes, born 1957 in London, son of the Feminist writer Eva Figes. Feminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. ...
Figes is one of Britain's leading historians of modern Russian history. Although he has published an extensive range of academic work, he is most famous for his popular works on the subject, most notably A People's Tragedy and Natasha's Dance. The history of Russia is essentially that of its many nationalities, each with a separate history and complex origins. ...
He frequently reviews books for The Guardian and The London Review of Books. He graduated from Cambridge with a double-starred First in history in 1982. Orlando Figes is currently professor of History at Birkbeck College in London. The Guardian is a British newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. ... The London Review of Books (or LRB) is a twice-monthly British literary magazine. ... The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, with one of the most selective entry requirements in the United Kingdom. ... The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme used to distinguish between the achievements of undergraduate degree holders (such as those gaining bachelors degrees or undergraduate masters degrees) in the United Kingdom. ... Birkbeck Birkbeck (sometimes still called Birkbeck College) is a College of the University of London. ...
Works
Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917-21, 1989, ISBN 019822169X
A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution 1891-1924, 1996, ISBN 071267327X
With Boris Kolonitskii: Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917, 1999, ISBN 0300081065
Natasha's Dance: A cultural History of Russia, 2002, ISBN 0140297960
Figes argues rationally that the Russian revolution was possible in Russia because of the country's position at the beginning of this century; and he explains also how the country came to be in that position, placing considerable emphasis on the Russian personality.
Figes has adopted a Tolstoyan convention of telling the stories of a few individuals of middling importance as a means of describing what 'real people' did in the course of the revolution and demonstrating how the views and actions of such people determined the awful disaster.
OrlandoFiges clearly has a grand and lucid mind, and when he has learnt a certain deference to his olders and betters, and indeed to his readers, whoever they may be, he might contrive to write a book that is as good as it is impressive.
As OrlandoFiges' new cultural history of Russia shows, the true character of this vast country is almost impossible to grasp.
Leo Tolstoy, who figures prominently in Figes' book, believed that the answer to Russia's identity could be found in the lives of the peasant class and in the subtle ways that they influenced the aristocrats who literally owned them until their emancipation by Tsar Alexander II in 1861.
Figes allows his readers to decide for themselves whether Russia is a nation of the East or of the West.
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