Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A Pelican Introduction (Pelican Books)

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Orlando Figes's latest book is Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 (Pelican, 2014), which draws from which draws from several of his previous books on the Russian Revolution and Soviet history. It argues that - although it changed in form and character - the Russian Revolution should be understood as a single cycle of 100 years, from the famine crisis of 1891 until the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991. Orlando Figes is an award-winning author of nine books on Russian and European history which have been translated into over 30 languages. These changes also helped the rise of nationalist movements on the periphery of the empire. Until the development of rural schools and networks of communication, nationalism remained an élite urban movement for native language rights in schools and universities, literary publications and official life. Outside the towns its influence was limited. The peasants were barely conscious of their nationality. ‘I myself did not know that I was a Pole till I began to read books and papers,' recalled a farmer after 1917.6 In many areas, such as Ukraine, Belorussia and the Caucasus, there was so much ethnic intermingling that it was difficult for anything more than a localized form of identity to take root in the popular consciousness. ‘Were one to ask the average peasant in the Ukraine his nationality,' observed a British diplomat, ‘he would answer that he is Greek Orthodox; if pressed to say whether he is a Great Russian, a Pole or an Ukrainian, he would probably reply that he is a peasant; and if one insisted on knowing what language he spoke, he would say that he talked "the local tongue".'7 Lenin was made for a fight. He gave himself entirely to the revolutionary struggle. ‘That is my life!' he confessed to the French socialist (and his lover) Inessa Armand in 1916. ‘One fighting campaign after another.'16 There was no ‘private Lenin' behind the professional revolutionary. The odd affair apart, he lived like a middle-aged provincial clerk, with precisely fixed hours for meals, sleep and work. There was a strong puritanical streak in Lenin's character which later manifested itself in the political culture of his dictatorship. He suppressed his emotions to strengthen his resolve and cultivate the ‘hardness' he believed was required by the successful revolutionary: the capacity to spill blood for the revolution's ends. There was no place for sentiment in Lenin's life. ‘I can't listen to music too often,' he once admitted after a performance of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata. ‘It makes me want to say kind, stupid things, and pat the heads of people. But now you have to beat them on the head, beat them without mercy.'17 In December 2013, Figes wrote a long piece in the US journal Foreign Affairs on the Euromaidan demonstrations in Kyiv suggesting that a referendum on Ukraine's foreign policy and the country's possible partition might be a preferable alternative to the possibility of civil war and military intervention by Russia. [49]

Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 - Penguin Books UK

A primer intended for readers unfamiliar with the territory, it sparkles with ideas, vivid storytelling, poignant anecdotes and pithy phrases... Fresh and dramatic." (Victor Sebestyen, Sunday Times) Born in Islington, London in 1959, Figes is the son of John George Figes and the feminist writer Eva Figes, whose Jewish family fled Nazi Germany in 1939. The author and editor Kate Figes was his elder sister. [5] [6] He attended William Ellis School in north London (1971–78) and studied History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating with a double-starred first in 1982. He completed his PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge. Angus Macqueen (10 October 2010). "Crimea: The Last Crusade by Orlando Figes – review". The Observer. London . Retrieved 31 August 2011. Luke Harding (15 October 2009). "Russian historian arrested in clampdown on Stalin era". The Guardian. After his arrival in the capital, St Petersburg, in 1893, Lenin moved much closer to the standard Marxist view—that Russia was only at the start of its capitalist stage and that a democratic movement by the workers in alliance with the bourgeoisie was needed to defeat autocracy before a socialist revolution could commence. No more talk of a coup d'état or terror. It was only after the establishment of a ‘bourgeois democracy', granting freedoms of speech and association to the workers, that the second and socialist phase of the revolution could begin.

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In 2023 Figes was awarded an Honorary Degree by the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo in Santiago, Spain [4] Personal life and education [ edit ] Harding, Luke (7 December 2008). "Luke Harding, "British scholar rails at police seizure of anti-Stalin archive", The Observer, 7 December 2008". The Guardian. London.

Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A History: Written by Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A History: Written by

Fast forward to the 20th century and note Stalin’s use of religion on the eve of the second world war, replacing Bolshevik slogans with religious iconography and enlisting the support of the Orthodox church to rally support for the motherland against the Nazis. We see the same echoes again today in Putin’s “holy war” against Ukraine. Stanford, Peter (8 October 2017). "Those who complained about War and Peace are 'whingers', says historical advisor Orlando Figes". Telegraph.co.uk . Retrieved 8 October 2017.

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Figes, Orlando (2019). The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture. London: Allen Lane. pp.3–4. ISBN 978-0241004890.

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Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991 (Pelican, 2014) draws from several of Figes’ previous books on the Russian Revolution and Soviet history. It argues that - although it changed in form and character - the Russian Revolution should be understood as a single cycle of 100 years, from the famine crisis of 1891 until the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991. Makers of their own tragedy". The Independent. 23 October 2011. Archived from the original on 24 May 2022.His books have been translated into French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Russian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Estonian, Latvian, Slovenian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, Hebrew, Georgian, Korean, Japanese and Chinese.[ "Orlando Figes [Author and Professor of Russian History]". Orlandofiges.com . Retrieved 19 November 2013. ] Current RSL Fellows". Royal Society of Literature. Archived from the original on 2 October 2012 . Retrieved 18 March 2014.