The complexities of Russian culture are not to be taken on lightly, but Figes successfully guides the reader through the forest of the great Pantheon of music, literature, poetry, art, and much more which form the cultural heritage of the world’s largest country. Mongol rule across the subsequent 300 years left a large imprint on Russian official and popular culture.

Petro’nun başlattığı bu akım Petersburg’daki aristokrat kesimin özümsemesiyle birlikte bence oldukça ilginç boyutlara varmış.He argues that - or rather describes how - Russia's upper classes imbibed the peasant life from birth. I particularly enjoy reading about the Soviet Union and began to trace history back from the revolution with Bunin's Cursed days and Bulgakov's White Guard.

Natasha's Dance, which has been followed by his more recent work, The Whisperers, veers away from the 1861-1953 period on which so much has been written and opens up new lines of investigation to the amateur reader. Of course, Stalin allowed nobody to get away with criticising him, but the Soviet authoritarian system never totally closed the door to the expression of popular discontent.Figes's book takes its title from a famous scene in War and Peace, where the young and beautiful Countess Natasha hears a popular melody and, instinctively aware of the peasant rhythm and steps, begins to dance to it. But thankfully, apart from the fact that Orlando Figes is known for using sockpuppets to trash his critics and competitors, this is a pretty solid introductory tract on Russian history. Figes point however is that both peasants and aristocrats are connected to Russia and are ‘Russian’, more than they would like to admit.

For the peasantry believed in a universe where the earth and spirit worlds were intimately linked in one continuum. If that is true then how can there be a legacy of world acclaimed literature, art, music, dance, and architecture?But as his book reaches beyond the October Revolution, he ceases to be interested in the influences exerted by "the people" on the cultural elites. Tolstoy shows that however grand and foreign-educated they might be, at heart the Russians are Russians. Kniha začína stavbou Petrohradu, ruských Benátok, a cez pasáže o náboženstve, etnografii sa dostáva k Dostojevskému, Čechovovi a Tolstému. The spirit world was a constant presence in their daily lives, with demons and angels at every turn.

Celé je to potiahnuté krutosťou, smútkom, najmä časti o Achmatovovej v Dome fontán a Cvetajevovej, dvoch veľkých ruských poetiek zomletých v mlyne Sovietskeho zväzu. The book tells us about the complex interaction between these two cultures and the influence this interaction has had on the national consciousness and the arts.Before moving to Birkbeck he was a University Lecturer in History and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. But I've been a fan of Russian literature--especially the great novels of the 19th century, and of Russian music and particularly of the Russian ballet and its offshoots in the West. Hence, in many places it became the custom to bury murder victims, those who died by suicide or poisoning, deformed people and sorcerers and witches outside the boundaries of the cemetery. Now, in Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Orlando Figes does the same for Russian culture, summoning the myriad elements that formed a nation and held it together. Bütün bunların yanında Rus şiirine katkısı açışından göz ardı edilemeyecek kadar değerli olan Mayakovski’nin yaşamını müthiş bir inançla çarpıtıp, Stalin karşıtı görüşlerini bütün rejime karşıymış gibi gösterme çabası ise Mayakovski ile ilgili ayrıntılı bilgi sahibi olmayan okuyucuları yanlış yönlendirecek seviyede diye düşünüyorum.