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The New Lazarus

The Aviator by eugene vodolazkin translated by lisa c. hayden oneworld, 400 pages, $26.99 In one of the greatest memoirs of the Stalin years, Nadezhda Mandelstam wrote, “We have to get over our loss of memory.” Beginning with Gorbachev’s glasnost, and especially after the fall of communism, . . . . Continue Reading »

Royal Fatalism

The Romanovs:  1613–1918 by simon sebag montefiore vintage, 784 pages, $35 The Romanovs Under House Arrest:  From the 1917 Diary of a Palace Priest by afanasy belyaev translated by leonid michailitschenko holy trinity, 136 pages, $29.95 The Romanov dynasty begins and ends with one name: . . . . Continue Reading »

Russian Jeremiah

Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile, 1974–1978 by aleksandr solzhenitsyn notre dame, 480 pages, $35 The first volume of Solzhenitsyn’s memoir of exile, Between Two Millstones, begins with the author’s expulsion from the Soviet Union and closes with him viewing the landscape . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

With God in America: The Spiritual Legacy of an Unlikely Jesuit by walter j. ciszek, s.j. loyola, 264 pages, $19.95 With God in America completes the triptych of the legendary Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., an American missionary priest who endured twenty-three years in the Soviet Gulag. While the . . . . Continue Reading »

Dispatches from Russia

Some little while ago, I found myself sitting in the grounds of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow, delighting in the spring flowers and being treated to a prodigious display of bell-ringing. I reflected at the time that the Russians have few peers among other nations in their great love for church . . . . Continue Reading »

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