Russian Revolution Fiction

In 2014, Sonya Bilocerkowycz is a tourist at a deadly revolution. At first she is enamored with the Ukrainians' idealism, which reminds her of her own patriotic family. But when the romantic revolution melts into a war with Russia, she becomes disillusioned, prompting a return home to the US and the diaspora community that raised her. As the daughter of a man who studies Ukrainian dissidents for a living, the granddaughter of war refugees, and the great-granddaughter of a gulag victim, Bilocerkowycz has inherited a legacy of political oppression.

The renowned fantasy and science fiction writer China Mieville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution, and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history. In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?

Kyiv, 1919. The Soviets control the city, but White armies menace them from the West. No man trusts his neighbour and any spark of resistance may ignite into open rebellion. When Samson Kolechko's father is murdered, his last act is to save his son from a falling Cossack sabre. Deprived of his right ear instead of his head, Samson is left an orphan, with only his father's collection of abacuses for company. Until, that is, his flat is requisitioned by two Red Army soldiers, whose secret plans Samson is somehow able to overhear with uncanny clarity.

Anna, a young countess, has lived in the glittering city of St Petersburg all her life in an ice-blue palace overlooking the River Neva. But when revolution tears Russia apart, her now-penniless family is forced to flee to England. Armed with an out-of-date book on housekeeping, Anna determines to become a housemaid and she finds work at the Earl of Westerholme's crumbling but magnificent mansion.

Im russischen Zarenreich aufgewachsen, erlebt der Moskauer Arzt Juri Andrejewitsch Shiwago den Ausbruch der Oktoberrevolution. Alle Hoffnungen auf eine glänzende Karriere werden mit der neuen Ordnung zerstört und er beschließt, mit seiner Familie auf ein Landgut reicher Verwandter zu ziehen. Das Familienidyll gerät ins Wanken, als Shiwago Lara wiedertrifft, die er in einem Lazarett kennenlernte. Sein halbes Leben lang arbeitete Boris Pasternak an diesem Roman, der in der Sowjetunion nicht publiziert werden durfte, und erhielt dafür 1958 den Literaturnobelpreis.

Yakov Blumkin claimed to have had nine lives. Born to a poor Jewish family and orphaned as a child, he was a Socialist Revolutionary, a terrorist, the assassin of the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach, a poet close to the avant-garde, a member of Cheka, a military strategist, a secret agent, and Leon Trotsky’s secretary. Executed in 1929 on Stalin’s orders at the age of only twenty-nine, he has continued to inspire a powerful curiosity, and wild rumors and falsehoods about his extraordinary life abound today.

La Revolución rusa es uno de los acontecimientos más importantes del S. XX en Europa porque supone la creación del primer gobierno socialista en el mundo y antecede a la creación de la URSS y al cruel gobierno de Stalin, dos hechos sin los cuales no se puede dar cuenta de la historia mundial del S. XX. Breve historia de la Revolución rusa nos presenta este conflicto de un modo claro que no renuncia, sin embargo, a explicar detalladamente no sólo los procesos que llevaron a la creación de la URSS sino las distintas ambiciones de los agentes implicados en tales procesos.

Сколько ещё секретов таит в себе красная планета? И главное—сколько из этих секретов будет разгадано? Пока что судьба благоволит Королю, но с каждым новым событием он на шаг отдаляется от своего изначального плана. Дорога домой становится всё менее реальной с каждым новым соларом.