![]() ![]() Given our current urgency to understand what is happening and how, Figes traces myths of 'Holy Russia' and the deep desire for a patriarchal figure to dominate and control: from the Tsars to Stalin to Putin, to the place of religious patriotism, and the almost masochistic sense of sublimation. ![]() This is about how 'Russia' thinks of itself, how it creates its ideological and mythical narratives and what those flashpoints are and have been across millennia, all the way up to the present. While this does sweep through the history of the country, the real focus, and what makes this so timely and fascinating, is that it doesn't just tell what happens, but how the cultural myth-making of 'Russia' runs alongside, and sometimes over, the historical material narrative. This is the book I've been wanting to read about Russia - and Figes is exactly the right person to write it. ![]()
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